Concealed carry is on the rise nationwide. Washington is a belwether state for this phenomenon. (Dave Workman photo)
By Dave Workman
Senior Editor
The state that tilted overwhelmingly for socialist Bernie Sanders in the Democrat caucuses earlier this year, and is widely considered one of the “Left Coast’s” bastions of liberalism has what some anti-gunners might consider a dirty little secret.
Despite the leftward tilt that voters in Seattle and along the I-5 corridor give the Evergreen State, according to the Department of Licensing, there are more than 540,000 active concealed pistol licenses in circulation, including almost 98,000 in King County, where Seattle is located. A rough breakdown of the figures shows that about 20 percent of those legally-packing citizens is a woman.
On June 1, the state DOL advised TGM that there were 540,716 active concealed pistol licenses in circulation. That’s up 5,738 over the May 2 figure of 534,978, and it reflects a continued trend that has been going on for several years.
In mid-June 2013, DOL reported 433,223 active CPLs and the following year, 2014, showed 457,042 licenses. On June 1 of last year, the agency reported 490,473 active CPLs.
The latest data shows 97,054 licenses in King County. Of those, 19,678 are females and 77,321 are males.
Washington was one of the first “shall issue” states with a preemption statute that has served as a model for similar laws in other states. The state preemption law was first passed in 1983 and updated two years later, coincidentally the year that the National Rifle Association held its annual members’ meeting at the Seattle Center. NRA has been back to Seattle only once since then, in 1997.
But what impact has this had on crime? The gun prohibition lobby has long maintained that more guns translates to more crime. But Seattle, a city of more than 600,000, has a remarkably low homicide rate for a city of its size. There were 24 homicides in 2015, and 23 the year before. This year looks to be in line with that.
[pullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Seattle, a city of more than 600,000, has a remarkably low homicide rate for a city of its size[/pullquote]
Compared to Milwaukee where there were 145 slayings last year, Baltimore with its 344 murders and Washington, D.C. where 162 people were killed, Seattle is sedate.
Washington is perhaps symbolic of a national trend that finds more than 13 million private citizens legally licensed to carry, by some estimates. Florida and Texas both have more than a million active licenses. There are carry statutes in all 50 states, although it is very difficult to obtain a permit in some states, such as Maryland or New Jersey. Washington, D.C. also makes it very tough to get a permit.
TGM has been carefully monitoring the concealed carry phenomenon, using Washington as something of a bellwether.
Seattle is home base for the Alliance for Gun Responsibility (AGR), a billionaire-funded lobbying organization that is currently pushing its second gun control initiative. Two years ago, as the Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility, the group spent more than $10.3 million to pass Initiative 594, a so-called “universal background check” measure. That initiative does not appear to have had any impact on violent crime, nor does it appear that police and prosecutors are even enforcing it.
Nationally, despite the continuing rise in concealed carry license applications, the murder rates have gone down. According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, in 2014 there were 8,124 homicides committed with firearms out of 11,961 murders. Even if those figures are not complete, that’s a far cry from the 33,000 “gun violence deaths” that anti-gunners are continually reporting.
The majority of those fatalities are suicides, a fact overlooked by the AGR in multiple e-mails promoting the second annual “Gun Violence Awareness Day” in June. The group sent an e-mail blast claiming that in the 48 hours leading up to their event, “178 people will lose their lives to gun violence.”
While AGR and Everytown were promoting symbolism by encouraging anti-gun activists to wear bright orange on June 2, the firearms community had accomplished something of substance. The Second Amendment Foundation and National Rifle Association championed the Suicide Awareness and Prevention Education for Safer Homes Act in the Washington Legislature earlier this year. They worked for months last year with the University of Washington’s Dr. Jennifer Stuber and State Rep. Tina Orwall, and the result was legislation that addresses suicide prevention rather than promoting some new form of restrictive gun control.
“Having this bill signed into law was the result of a great deal of behind-the-scenes work, and I’m proud to have been personally involved in the process,” said SAF’s Alan Gottlieb at the time. “This is and always has been about preventing tragedies, not infringing on anyone’s civil rights.”
