BELLEVUE, WA – The intervention of a legally-armed private citizen Wednesday night in downtown Seattle stopped a dangerous criminal suspect and may have saved lives in a city which would love to disarm the public, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said in response.
“Based on what we have learned about the incident,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “the armed Samaritan just happened to be in the right place at the right time. He apparently witnessed a brutal attack which stemmed from an argument between three people, two of whom were shot and seriously wounded by the suspect, who turned out to have been 16, according to the Seattle Times, and at that age was illegally carrying a handgun.
“In a city where political policies have resulted in reduced police manpower while placing limits on the officers who remain,” he continued, “it should come as no surprise that an increasing number of law-abiding citizens are now licensed to carry firearms for their personal protection. Seattle and King County have the highest number of active licenses of any county in the state. Coincidentally, just a few blocks away at about the same time, there was a fatal stabbing, which says a lot about crime in the city.
The armed Samaritan remained on the scene and has reportedly cooperated with the investigation, according to published reports.
“What is also not surprising,” Gottlieb observed, “is the dead silence from the state’s gun prohibition lobby, which is headquartered in Seattle. There has been nary a peep, which seems to have become customary whenever an armed citizen takes action in defense of himself or others, anywhere in the country.
“Fortunately,” he said, “Seattle police were on the scene within a couple of minutes, but as the saying goes, ‘when seconds count, police are minutes away.’ It is interesting to note that an online opinion poll by KOMO News shows an overwhelming 70 percent of respondents say their feeling of safety when working or visiting downtown Seattle is low. There’s a message in that to Mayor Bruce Harrell and the city council, and maybe even a moral. In a city which has done its worst to disarm honest citizens while crime has increased, it is ironic that an armed citizen appears to have done what the city hasn’t.”