By Dave Workman
Senior Editor
More than 426,000 active Washington concealed pistol licenses are now in circulation, up a staggering 15,289 between mid-April and mid-May, according to the state Department of Licensing (DOL).
This confirms what various sources in law enforcement say about the volume of applications and renewals, and the work overload to process them.
Since the beginning of 2013, the state added almost 33,400 CPLs when TGM checked with the DOL. There is no slowdown in sight.
The surge translates to more bad news for Evergreen State gun prohibitionists, thinly disguising themselves as “gun responsibility” activists, since the term “gun control” has proven to be politically toxic in Olympia, the state’s capitol. It comes on the heels of reports from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and Pew Research Center that firearm-related homicides are down dramatically from 1993 during a period when gun ownership has surged.
The official CPL number provided to TGM on May 14 was 426,180, up from 392,784 reported on Jan. 2. Going farther back, on May 25 of last year, the DOL reported 365,407 active CPLs, a difference of 60,773 legally-licensed citizens in just under one year, an average of more than 5,000 new CPLs every month in Washington, which is the second most populous state in the west, next to California. It is also considered a politically “blue” state, having voted twice for Barack Obama and sending two anti-gun women to the U.S. Senate, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray.
The Thurston County Sheriff’s Department noted to TGM that it has been falling behind on issuing CPLs within the statutory time frame spelled out in the law. That agency is overwhelmed and is trying to catch up. Larger agencies, such as the King County Sheriff’s Department, can typically renew on the spot typically within 30 minutes at the county courthouse in downtown Seattle.
Because Washington is a “shall issue” state, police sheriff’s departments cannot exercise discretionary authority over who gets a carry licenses.
Washington is hardly alone in this armed citizen surge. Some sources in the firearms community suggest that the rise in concealed carry is partly due to the Supreme Court rulings in Heller and McDonald, the latter being a case litigated by the Second Amendment Foundation. Both of those rulings affirmed that the Second Amendment protects an individual civil right to keep and bear arms. Now that private gun ownership has been affirmed by the high court, more people are doing it because they realize – thanks to increased press attention to violent crime stories – that in an emergency, the police likely will not be there to intervene, and it will be the armed private citizen who acts as a first responder.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee wanted to see the Legislature take up gun control during the special session that began in May, but state lawmakers were cool to approach the subject. Capitol anti-gunners did not fare well during the regular session, and with a limited amount of time, lawmakers needed to concentrate on passing a budget.
Besides, gun owners vastly outnumber organized gun prohibitionists in the Evergreen State. Washington Ceasefire claims 5,000 members on its website. Stacked against more than 426,000 CPL holders, that’s not going to impress anyone outside of the Seattle legislative contingent. It is not known how many people belong to the Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility, an anti-gun organization that is threatening to run a state initiative pushing background checks, which the state already does for handgun purchases and CPLs.
