Tuesday’s election results have handed Washington State Democrats – often dominated by Seattle’s ultra-liberal delegation – full control of state government, and Evergreen State gun rights activists are both furious and fearful.
What arouses their ire are statements like the one reported by the Seattle P-I.com from Democrat Sen. Sharon Nelson, minority leader, who vowed, “our new majority will work hard every single day to build a better Washington that offers opportunity and a voice to every single person in this state.” Well, maybe not every person in the state. While there are some strong Second Amendment Democrats in Olympia, the party seems to suffer from deafness when gun owners speak about their rights being eroded.
One disturbing sign is a report from Seattle’s KING5 News, the local NBC affiliate. Democrat Manka Dinghra, winner in a hotly-contested and highly expensive special state Senate race, told a KING reporter that her priorities include “sensible gun legislation.”
That raises the question that nobody, including the press, has ever answered or even defined. What, exactly, is “sensible gun legislation?”
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If one peruses the email political blasts that came from the Seattle-based Alliance for Gun Responsibility, the billionaire-backed gun prohibition lobbying group, such legislation would include a ban on “bump stocks” and “closing loopholes that allow domestic violence abusers to buy firearms.” Regarding bump stocks, they’re a gimmick that most people never heard of before Oct. 1 because they may not have previously been used in a high-profile crime.
As to the “loophole” about domestic abuse, that issue might best be taken up with the U.S. Air Force, which apparently did not forward the criminal record of the Texas church shooter to the National Instant Check System. Had that been done, the killer would not have been legally able to buy a gun from a firearms retailer.
What about a ban on so-called “assault weapons?” The Seattle Times editorial board seemed to pooh-pooh that idea, but they have been previously guilty of underestimating the fervor of far left liberals. When it comes to gun control, that newspaper’s editorial writers have rarely met a restriction they didn’t embrace.
What may prevent the kind of mayhem anti-gunners want to inflict on the state and federal right-to-bear-arms constitutional provisions are Democrats in rural or swing districts who have remained faithful to their gun-owning constituents.
The anti-gun wish list in Washington State is long, and it is similar to the agenda of gun control extremists across the country. They want to eliminate the state’s model preemption law that prevents cities and counties from adopting their own gun laws. They would revert to an arbitrary “discretionary” concealed pistol license scheme, despite the fact that more than 590,000 Washington residents hold active CPLs. They would ban semi-auto modern sporting rifles, setting in motion the criminalization of such firearms that are now legally-owned by tens of thousands of law-abiding state residents.
How about licensing and registration? Mandatory storage requirements?
Here, again, these proposals underscore the fact that anti-gunners consider private gun ownership a regulated government privilege rather than a constitutionally delineated fundamental right.
With the 2018 elections that could easily reverse Tuesday’s win already hanging over the Democrat majority, they will need to think long and hard about any measure that will only anger voters while not preventing any crimes.
Related:
- WA gun rights rally coincides with court motion against Seattle
- Washington State Senate race draws big anti-gun bucks
- CNN’s Chris Cillizza says gun lobby has convinced people Dems want to take guns, gets hammered on Twitter
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