By Dave Workman | Senior Editor
Gun control proponents quickly moved to exploit the mass shooting at the Molson Coors Brewery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and that includes one gun prohibition lobbying group in distant Seattle, Wash.
The head of the Seattle-based Alliance for Gun Responsibility, the billionaire-backed lobbying group, sent out an email blast using the tragedy to promote gun control legislation in the Evergreen State.
The message called for gun control proponents to demand passage of House Bill 2947, a proposed ban on so-called “high capacity magazines” in the state. The legislation has met strong resistance from grassroots rights activists who showed up in good numbers for a quickly-scheduled legislative hearing. The number of gun owners showing up to testify or simply to be seen was apparently unnerving to the Alliance, whose email complained, “Our opposition is tireless in their work against this bill and they are more organized than ever before.”
The Milwaukee victims have been identified as Jesus Valle Jr., and Trevor Wetselaar, both 33 and both from Milwaukee; Dale Hudson, 60, Waukesha; Dana Walk, 57, Delafield and Gennady Levshetz, 61, Mequon, according to WDJT News, the local CBS affiliate.
While the investigation is still in its early stages, some Democratic presidential candidates wasted no time to exploit the tragedy to further the gun control agenda. And the Wisconsin State Journal noted that Democrat Gov. Tony Evers had, “Just before the shooting… renewed his call for the state Legislature to take up bills that would enact a universal background check for gun purchases and institute a ‘red-flag’ law allowing judges to confiscate guns from people determined to be a risk to themselves and others.”
The suspected killer, who took his own life, was identified as Anthony Ferrill, a 17-year-employee at the Molson Coors Brewing Company. Some reports say he was armed with two handguns and one of them apparently was fitted with a suppressor (“silencer”).
Out in Washington, there has been a sudden surge of Second Amendment activism. Passage of the Alliance’s gun control Initiative 594 in 2014—requiring so-called “universal background checks” that do not appear to have not prevented a single violent crime in Washington state—was the first strike. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers had been calling for new gun control legislation including “universal background checks,” but even if such legislation had been law, it would not have prevented the shooting. The suspected gunman was known to have owned firearms for several years.
Meanwhile, out in Washington state, the Alliance is lamenting about the newly-energized grassroots rights activists “calling and emailing legislators every single day and if we don’t do the same thing, we will lose.”
The email also said something else that leaves activists curious: “It is up to us to make sure our elected officials understand that it is their duty to pass this bill. We are NOT going to run another initiative to ask voters to do what our lawmakers were elected to do.”
According to the Crime Prevention Research Center, the Milwaukee shooting “Appears to be yet another mass public shooting in a gun-free zone.” All of the victims were brewery employees, so this might not qualify as a “public” shooting but instead a workplace shooting.
Coincidentally, as noted by the Wisconsin State Journal, “The shooting took place less than 3 miles from the venue that will host the Democratic National Convention in five months.” Expect Democrats speaking at the convention in July to mention the brewery shooting in their effort to push gun control as part of the party platform.
