BELLEVUE, WA – While anti-gun-rights advocates across the country remain faithful to arguments that restrictive gun control laws work, a simple glance at recent entries to the Seattle Police Blotter provide ample evidence that they’re living in a fantasy, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.
“At least three times in May,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “Seattle officers encountered convicted felons who were carrying guns. Restrictive gun laws, embraced by Seattle voters over the past few years, didn’t prevent any of these criminals from getting firearms. One was wanted on a federal warrant. Another suspect ran but was quickly apprehended in a separate incident. A third man, also a convicted felon, was arrested in a different incident after officers spotted him receiving a pistol from another man, and putting the gun in his pocket.
“What’s happening in Seattle is a microcosm of what’s going on across the country,” he added. “Check any big city and you’ll find reports of criminals with firearms because they ignore the laws that only penalize honest citizens, yet the gun control crowd refuses to learn anything from this pattern.
“None of these suspects were deterred by the gun control laws promoted by the Seattle-based gun prohibition lobby,” he observed. “It’s time for these billionaire-backed social do-gooders to accept the fact that criminals don’t obey gun control laws. Criminals don’t bother with background checks or waiting periods. They don’t fill out a single piece of paper, nor do they worry about carrying guns without a concealed pistol license.”
Since 2014, two restrictive gun control initiatives bankrolled by the Seattle gun prohibition lobby have made it more difficult for law-abiding Evergreen State citizens to purchase legal firearms. Neither of these measures – Initiatives 594 and 1639 – have reduced homicides in Washington, as sold to the public. Indeed, last year saw Seattle nearly double the number of slayings over 2019.
“We also predicted the gun and ammunition tax adopted by Seattle in 2015 would fail,” Gottlieb noted, “and we were right. From 2016 through 2020, the number of murders in the city has gradually climbed, according to Seattle police data. And the tax has never come close to producing the predicted revenue of $300,000 to $500,000.
“When laws don’t work,” he said, “they should be scrapped. Adding even more laws, and expecting them to work better isn’t just dumb, it’s delusional. The public has been gulled by the siren song of gun control and the time has come to turn off the music. Gun control is like snake oil. It comes with a great sales pitch, but it doesn’t prevent anything and it cures nothing. In the end, the problem remains and the ingredients leave you worse off than you were before.”