By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
New data from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC) shows that the number of homicides statewide went up in 2022, a rise of 16.6 percent over 2021; the highest number of murders recorded since WASPC began collecting data in 1980.
The group says there were 394 homicides in 2022, a staggering number considering historic levels.
The number of homicides has increased 96 percent since 2019, according to a new report from the organization, which is significant because it has occurred in the wake of voter-adopted gun control initiatives which were sold to the public as schemes to lower the number of murders.
The last of two major gun control measures was passed in November 2018, so 2019 was the first full year it was in effect. This was I-1639, which did several things, none of which evidently accomplished anything other than inconveniencing law-abiding citizens. The initiative banned sales of semiautomatic rifles to young adults ages 18-20. It required proof of safety training for anyone older than 21 before they could purchase a semi-auto rifle. It invented a definition for “semiautomatic assault rifles” that applied to any self-loading rifle, regardless of caliber, manufactured anywhere in the world, and it mandated a 10-day waiting period on the purchase of such firearms.
Previously, in 2014, voters passed Initiative 594 after proponents at the Seattle-based Alliance for Gun Responsibility spent more than $10 million on the campaign. Their money—largely provided by wealthy elitists including venture capitalist Nick Hanauer and Microsoft alumni Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and the late Paul Allen, along with Michael Bloomberg—simply overwhelmed the opposition. I-594 mandated so-called “universal background checks.” This was supposed to solve the “background check loophole,” but the contention ignored the fact that criminals do not go through background checks.
According to WASPC, while violent crime has gone up, the number of commissioned peace officers has gone down, while the state population went up by more than 93,000 residents.
“Washington is ranked 51st out of the 50 states and District of Columbia for the number of officers per thousand residents,” the group noted in a news release.
Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, issued a statement in which he recalled, “While the billionaires who bankrolled both initiatives were saying these measures would reduce crime, we were telling people the truth, and the WASPC report vindicates our arguments.”
Gottlieb opposed both gun control initiatives, and he was also critical of the bans on magazines and semi-auto rifles.
“At this point,” he observed, “it is fair to ask what good has any of these laws accomplished? These gun control measures have only helped make people less safe, and it should be clear to voters they’ve been deceived by the gun prohibition lobby, which will no doubt try to spin the new report to suggest even stricter measures are necessary.
“In private business,” Gottlieb said, “if something repeatedly doesn’t work, the plan is scrapped and the company tries something else. If the people responsible refuse to let go, they might be fired. But the anti-gun crowd invariably doubles down, only making things worse. It is time to hold these people accountable, and for the Legislature to acknowledge that gun control extremism has been an abject failure. Restrictions created by I-594 and I-1639 can legally be repealed, along with Ferguson’s 2022 ban on magazines and this year’s ban on so-called ‘assault weapons.’ Washington citizens deserve better and it is time for a change of direction.”
