BELLEVUE, WA – Authorities in Washington’s King County—epicenter of the Northwest’s gun prohibition movement—are alarmed at the continued rise in gun-related homicides and shooting incidents, but nowhere has anyone acknowledged that gun control laws they have supported are an utter failure, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

“Nothing more clearly illustrates gun control lack of success than the situation in King County,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “It is reflective of the national trend revealed in the FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2020, showing murders up by 30 percent nationwide. If restricting the gun rights of law-abiding citizens worked, this should not be the case.”

Gottlieb recited the recent failed history of the Seattle-based, and billionaire-backed gun control crusade beginning in 2014 with statewide Initiative 594, requiring so-called “universal background checks” for all gun transfers. This was followed in 2015 by Seattle’s adoption of a special gun control tax on the sale of firearms and ammunition, which has never achieved the revenue forecast of $300,000 to $500,000 annually, and has only driven business out of the city. In 2018, Seattle’s wealthy anti-gun elitists pushed through another statewide gun control initiative, again contending it would reduce gun-related violent crime, but the exact opposite has happened.

“Let’s look at the embarrassing data,” Gottlieb suggested. “According to the report, this year’s 73 gun-related homicides in King County so far have already surpassed last year’s total of 69, and there are still more than two months to go in 2021. Last year Seattle saw 52 murders, and the year before that there were 35. Seattle’s gun tax took effect in 2016, and that year the city reported just 19 murders.

“Statewide,” he continued, “gun control has likewise failed. In 2015, the first full year after I-594 was passed, the state reported 209 slayings, of which 141 involved firearms, according to FBI data. Last year, according to the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, the state saw 302 murders, and their data shows 178 involving firearms. FBI data for 2019 shows 135 homicides involving firearms, so that’s quite a jump.

“Instead of using this data to push for even harsher laws,” Gottlieb said, “it is time for the gun prohibition lobby, not just in Washington but across the country, to admit their agenda has failed. It’s time to scrap extremist gun control laws and try something else like supporting our police and locking up violent criminals.”

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