By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Seattle’s KOMO—the local ABC affiliate—is reporting a “dramatic increase” in the number of cases involving gunshot trauma since 2020, which might be an unintentional confirmation that restrictive gun control schemes adopted over the past few years have failed miserably.
The revelation comes on the heels of a GunMag report on Washington State’s skyrocketing interest in concealed carry, a public reaction to rising violent crime and defund-the-police efforts over the past two-plus years.
According to KOMO, Dr. Eileen Bulger, chief of surgery at Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center—a facility renowned along the West Coast for its ability to handle severe trauma cases—says the number of gunshot cases treated at Harborview has soared to more than 500 a year. In 2021, according to a chart illustration, the hospital treated 511 shooting victims and in 2022, the number climbed to 526.
The KOMO report noted “That number has been increasing since 2018 when the hospital treated 308 gunshot victims.”
By no small coincidence, 2018 was the year the Seattle-based, and billionaire-backed Alliance for Gun Responsibility, a gun prohibition advocacy group, pushed through the second—and more restrictive—of two gun control initiatives. Initiative 1639 banned sales of modern semiautomatic rifles to young adults and invented a definition for “semiautomatic assault rifle” that applies literally to every self-loading rifle, regardless of caliber, every manufactured anywhere on earth. It is a firearm that, according to former Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich, doesn’t exist except on paper.
SEE: WA Concealed Carry Rebounds, Could Hit 700K Soon
That measure, and Initiative 594 passed in 2014, were bankrolled largely by a handful of wealthy elitists. Both initiatives were advertised as “gun safety” and violence reduction schemes, but rising homicide and gunshot wound data suggests neither measure has come close to delivering on their promise.
As earlier reported, the number of murders in Washington State have gone up, not down. But, instead of repealing or amending the failed laws, anti-gunners are doubling down, calling for a ban on semi-auto rifles and their magazines, permits-to-purchase with mandatory training, and repeal of Washington’s successful—and widely copied—state preemption statute dating back to 1983.
Something else KOMO revealed in its broadcast report that does not appear in the print version of their story was a revelation by reporter Jeremy Harris that, “Ninety-six percent of the patients who are brought here to the trauma center survive their injuries, but here’s something that stood out to me. The staff here tells me it’s not uncommon for them to treat gunshot victims who they have previously treated for shootings. According to (University of Washington) research, gunshot victims are 21 times more likely to be shot again.”
This may suggest those people are engaged in activities that may get them shot.
Perhaps not surprisingly, one shooting victim, identified as Paul Carter III, now works as a “violence prevention and intervention specialist.” His suggestion is that gun owners should use lockboxes and trigger locks.
However, grassroots gun rights activists repeatedly argue the people who are using guns to harm others have criminal backgrounds and they ignore such advice, along with gun control laws.
The story aired at a time the Legislature is gathered in Olympia, where Democrat lawmakers are pushing new gun restrictions.
