Posted on 02/02/2017 2:48:16 PM PST by PROCON
As the Washington State House Judiciary Committee gathers in Olympia to hear public testimony on two gun control bills Thursday afternoon, proponents of the measure requiring licensing and extensive background checks to own so-called “assault weapons” have a major problem.
Uniform rime data from the FBI dating back to 2013 does not support contentions that semi-automatic rifles or shotguns pose a serious threat to public safety. Indeed, crime reports spanning three years – 2013, 2014 and 2015, the most recent year for which data is available – suggest quite the opposite. Rifles and shotguns are used in a fraction of homicides.
In 2013, according to the FBI data, there were 155 homicides in Washington, of which 86 involved firearms. None of them involved a rifle and only seven were committed with shotguns.
The following year, according to FBI data for 2014, there were 172 murders, of which 94 involved firearms. Of those, six were committed with rifles and four involved shotguns.
In 2015, the Evergreen State logged 209 slayings, and 141 of those were committed with firearms. However, only three of those killings were committed with rifles and five more were committed with shotguns.
Last year, there were two high-profile shootings involving rifles that resulted in multiple victims. One incident in Mukilteo claimed the lives of three teens, and was committed with a modern sport utility rifle (MSR). The other was at the Cascade Mall in Burlington, where five people were killed, and the murder weapon there was a commonly-owned .22-caliber semi-auto, a rimfire rifle model owned by millions of Americans and used for taking small game or recreational shooting. More people died in the shooting involving the rimfire than the MSR.
In layman’s terms, 2016 might have been an anomaly.
The House Judiciary Committee will take testimony on House Bills 1387 and 1122. Under provisions of HB 1387, the “assault weapons” bill, owners must obtain a license that lists each “assault weapon” or large capacity magazine, and the owner may not sell or transfer the firearm or magazine to any other person other than a licensed dealer, federally licensed gunsmith for repair or to a law enforcement agency “for the purpose of permanently relinquishing the assault weapon or…magazine.”
The other legislation, HB 1122, is a so-called “safe storage” bill that critics see as an attempt to micro-manage firearms owners and penalize them for tragedies or crimes committed by other people over whom they have no control.
Washington is reflective of what is, or will be, happening in other states as the gun prohibition lobby – which disguises itself as a “gun safety” movement – turns its attention away from Congress now that Republicans control Capitol Hill and the White House, and increasingly to the states. It is at the state level where anti-gunners think they can get traction, through legislation or citizen initiatives. Legislation like the bills being considered today provide a launch pad for such measures, and with boatloads of cash, the wealthy elitists who want more gun control have discovered that they can literally buy their way onto the ballot.
As the statistics show, no more than 4% of gun homicides were committed by these types of weapons during the past couple of years.
Very unlikely that this will get legs in the legislature, but if it's put forth as a citizen's initiative, the majority of gun-fearing liberals in the Seattle area will give it enough votes to pass and become law.
More background info at link.
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Facts are meaningless when they interfere with emotional liberal lawmaking. ;
Gun Control is not about crime - it is about Control.
That’s ok, at the rate the rabid left coast is getting unhinged over Trump, it’ll all be OBE.
I live in a small town north of Seattle. My wife and I started thinking about how easily out-of-state money saddled us two years ago with the background check initiative so went out at Christmas and each bought an AR. At least now we’re grandfathered.
Sheesh, glad I moved.
Hopefully you're in Peoria, Arizona, not Illinois.
Now enforcing that law is another thing.
I live in E. Washington state and we spit on Olympia too.
Yes, Arizona! Much warmer down here.
Who gives F* about ‘stats’? “...shall NOT be infringed.” is the Law of the land.
Not as if the Socialists care one whit about our Rights, let alone logic or reason. It is about CONTROL. Simple as that.
But they look so evil....
I have in my personal library a copy of David Kopel’s “The Samurai, The Mountie, and The Cowboy: Should America adopt the Gun Controls of other Democracies?”. It, of course, was a groundbreaking study in contrasting and comparing American gun control laws and the surrounding culture with those of Canada, Japan, Jamaica, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Australia, and New Zealand.
I was thinking about this book in the wake of the tragic events in Quebec City this week (as Quebec has its own firearms registry and other very strict laws provincially). One thing to consider is that the American states that immediately border that province (Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont) have among themselves both the most casual or permissive state firearms laws in the entire United States and among the lowest state homicide rates (Vermont, along with Switzerland, being one of the least violent regions in the Western world).
Would a good, thought-provoking book similar to Kopel’s be able to be written nowadays that could compare and contrast distinct regions of the United States in terms of their firearms laws history and culture? One could look at the northern New England area (VT, MI, NH), Atlantic (NY, NJ, RI, MA, MD, DE), Pacific (CA, WA, OR, HI, and Alaska), perhaps an entire chapter dedicated to Texas, the Old South (GA, AL, FL, TN, LA, MO, AR, and the Carolinas), the Older West (OH, PA, MI, MN, IL, IA) and the Newer West (ID, MT, the Dakotas, AZ, CO, KS, NB, UT, and Nevada). I would like to hear other’s views on this as this sort of thing intrigues me.
I live in Washington state, on the Olympic Peninsula. I am very worried that this garbage will in fact pass.
Where I live it is beautiful and we love it here. I truly don’t want to be forced to move. I don’t even know if I can afford to move at this stage of my life, 68.
I hate those bastards that are pushing this fraud. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE CONSTITUTION??
I would be optimistic, my FRiend, these Marxist bastards in Olympia are trying their best, but the new Sheriff in DC is going to rescue us, be of good faith.
Thank you for your words of encouragement. I sure hope and pray President Trump can fix or stop this craziness.
BTW, we like “east of the mountains” too. ;>)
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