Evergreen State Democrats are joined on the hip with the gun prohibition foyer. iStock-884168778
If there was any doubt amongst Washington state gun house owners and Second Modification activists that the state Democratic occasion is joined on the hip with the billionaire-backed gun prohibition foyer in Seattle, it has been eliminated by the revelation of the occasion’s 2025 tax agenda.
Apparently intercepted by Republican state lawmakers and uncovered first by conservative activist Anthony Mixer after which by in style Seattle broadcast journalist/podcaster Brandi Kruse, Democrats’ speaking factors on new taxes embody this tenet:
“Tax on Sale of Ammunition & Firearms: Imposes a brand new 11% tax on gross sales of ammunition, firearms, and components. The tax is along with any tax imposed by federal, state or native governments. The brand new tax doesn’t apply to gross sales made to federal, state, native, or tribal governments to provide regulation enforcement or the navy.”
Web page from Washington State Democrat tax technique for 2025. (Display screen snip from Fb)
The seventh merchandise on the 2025 legislative agenda printed by the Alliance for Gun Accountability says this:
“ESTABLISH A TAX ON FIREARM SALES AND AMMUNITION: Gun violence prices Washington state a mean of $11.8 billion yearly, starting from direct medical prices and felony justice providers to a misplaced high quality of life for victims and their households after a tragedy. Washington should increase income to help victims and repair applications by way of an excise tax on the sale of firearms and ammunition.”
The Alliance notes on its web site, “the speed of gun suicide elevated 19 % and gun murder elevated 34 % from 2010 to 2019. Starting in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic elevated the dangers of all varieties of gun violence. Washington, just like the nation as a complete, noticed a document variety of murders in 2020. Luckily, the suicide price declined in Washington and nationally, defying most predictions. Whereas it isn’t attainable to establish one motive, it’s clear that the presence of suicide prevention insurance policies like Excessive Threat Safety Orders, voluntary waivers, and protected storage incentives, work to scale back gun suicide.”
Conveniently missed by the Alliance was any point out of the Second Modification Basis, which championed the Safer Properties suicide prevention undertaking with the College of Washington’s Forefront undertaking again in 2016.
Apparently, the rise in murder occurred after the Alliance pushed by means of the primary of two restrictive gun management initiatives, in 2014. Initiative 594 requires background checks on all however a number of firearms transactions. In accordance with knowledge from the Washington Affiliation of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC), in 2014 there have been 135 homicides within the Evergreen State. By 2019—the yr following adoption of the Alliance’s second anti-gun initiative (I-1639)—the quantity had climbed to 201.
Additional revealing the false guarantees of the Alliance’s anti-gun agenda, WASPC knowledge exhibits 302 homicides in 2020, adopted in 2021 by 325 murders, 384 killings in 2022 and 376 murders final yr, greater than twice the quantity posted again in 2014. Gun rights advocates have a look at the numbers and counsel that anti-gunners will need to have an odd definition of “success.”
Supply: Washington Affiliation of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs
However take into accout the Alliance additionally says this on their web site:
“Yearly, 781 Washingtonians are killed by weapons, a price of 10.2 per 100,000 individuals. Somebody is killed by a gun each 12 hours in Washington state. Extra persons are killed by weapons than die in automobile accidents in Washington.”
No one is ever “killed by a gun” in Washington or wherever else. They’re killed by individuals misusing weapons, for the firearm has no mind or conscience. It’s an inanimate object, solely—as Alan Ladd stated in Shane—“nearly as good or unhealthy as the person utilizing it.” It’s an instance of fastidiously chosen semantics.
Not solely have Democrats as soon as once more overtly proven Washington gun house owners and advocates their hostility for Second Modification rights by pushing the Alliance agenda, however the group additionally reveals in its press launch that anti-gun Democrat Rep. Liz Berry (thirty sixth District) would be the prime sponsor of one other of its agenda gadgets, a permit-to-purchase scheme which was rejected final yr.
In the identical launch, the Alliance claims “analysis performed by Johns Hopkins Heart for Gun Violence Options, if Washington had adopted a Allow-to-Buy regulation when Connecticut did, there would have been an estimated 1,205 fewer gun deaths in Washington over the primary 10 years of implementation.” The group is basically pushing what’s, at finest, hypothesis as reality.
The Alliance is comfortably at dwelling in Seattle, the place anti-gun Mayor Bruce Harrell introduced the hiring of Madison, Wisconsin Police Chief Shon Barnes as the brand new chief of Seattle’s embattled police division. This got here lower than 24 hours after KTTH speak host Jason Rantz wrote about Barnes’ competition—in a 2022 interview with a Madison broadcast journalist—the Second Modification “is probably not acceptable for 2022” in response to that yr’s faculty taking pictures in Uvalde, Texas. His report at MyNorthwest.com raised a small ruckus amongst gun rights advocates.
The Residents Committee for the Proper to Preserve and Bear Arms, which has been vital of Harrell prior to now over his efforts to repeal the state’s 40-year-old preemption regulation, additionally voiced issues about Barnes’ remarks. CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb famous in an announcement, “Just because society could have developed because the Invoice of Rights was ratified doesn’t imply we must always give up the precise of self-defense, a lot much less the precise to maintain and bear arms.”
He additionally noticed, “Our rights by no means exit of fashion.”
In accordance with an announcement from Harrell’s workplace, “Below Chief Barnes, thus far in 2024, Madison has seen a 67% lower in homicides, a 40% lower in auto thefts, a 36% lower in burglaries, and a 19% lower in stories of photographs fired.”
The profession lawman could have his abilities examined. Seattle has seen its variety of homicides triple because the metropolis council, with Harrell on board on the time, pushed by means of a metropolis tax on gun and ammunition gross sales again in 2015. In 2016, Seattle reported 20 murders for the whole yr, in response to Seattle Police Division knowledge. Final yr, town hit a document, in response to the favored website on “X” referred to as Seattle Murder, which isn’t linked to the Seattle Police Division.
Latest historical past suggests each ramped-up gun management effort in Washington state has been adopted by worse violent crime statistics. If this retains up, Washington shall be generally known as the Evergone State.
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About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, writer of a number of books on the Proper to Preserve & Bear Arms, and previously an NRA-certified firearms teacher.
