Washington State Democrats Pummel Gun Owners with Slew Immoral Gun Control Laws
While simultaneously looking to pass pro-criminal legislation that weaken existing gun laws that do reduce crime
A gun-smart sign in a gas station in Fredonia, NY, Photo: (Baron Maddock, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0)
Let’s put this latest assault on Washingtonian’s federal Second Amendment (2A) and state Article I, Section XXIV (A1) right to keep and bear arms by the Democrat bullies in the legislature in proper context, according to federal, state, and natural law.
The 2A/A1 is not a government-granted privilege. It is an unalienable right we’re born with. It mandates that the government recognize the People’s God-given right to life through self-defense, enabled by the right to keep and bear arms.
2. Peaceable American gun owners pose no threat to the general public. Therefore, laws established to “reduce gun violence” that only negatively impact peaceable gun owners and not armed criminals target the wrong people and are ineffective in reducing violence.
3. If the Democrat-dominated legislature wants to reduce “gun violence” then why is it proposing these new gun laws while simultaneously introducing legislation to weaken existing firearms laws that do work to reduce armed criminal violence? The Dems have introduced pro-criminal bills (as I wrote about recently) that castrate sentence enhancements for using a gun to commit a crime.
The Democrat-controlled state legislature has introduced six anti-Second Amendment bills that would all but erase, and would certainly alienate, peaceable gun owners’ constitutional rights.
Here’s a brief rundown of these unethical, immoral, freedom-killing bills:
Requires a government permit to purchase a firearm. This means getting a license from the government before an American can exercise an unalienable right?
2. (HB 1152)
Storage requirements for home/car would render firearms virtually useless for self-defense. According to KIRO News Radio’s Gee & Ursula, “Gun owners could be charged with felonies if [a] firearm gets stolen under the new proposed bill.”
They also warn, “The owner of a gun that becomes stolen could face a $1,000 fine, and if the thief who stole the firearm is someone who legally cannot own a gun and commits a violent crime with said gun, the gun owner could be charged with a separate felony.” This holds the victim responsible for the criminal’s crime.
3. (SB 5099)
This bill would create additional burdensome reporting requirements for gun store owners and attempts to define an “Assault Weapon.” It does so by listing several “scary” firearms, including the immensely popular AK-47 and AR-15 platforms, which operate the same way every other semi-automatic rifle does.
4. (HB 1386)
This bill would impose a special tax on guns, parts, and ammunition. How is this law not similar to an illegal poll tax.
5. (SB 5098)
This law would place restrictions on peaceable gun owners carrying guns in certain places, again rendering the right to self-defense largely ineffective unless the government can guarantee your safety in the restricted places.
The exclusion areas would include parks, playgrounds, and county fairs where children are likely to be. But what danger are peaceable gun owners to children in a park or anywhere else? Peaceable gun owners are protectors not predators.
How will a law restricting people from carrying firearms in a particular building or outdoor property will stop criminals from carrying guns in those places when they already carry guns in those places?
These laws won’t stop lawbreakers; they’ll only stop the law-abiding. But that’s the point, right? To control independent, self-reliant, liberty-minded Americans.
Other mandates within the bills include requiring insurance, fingerprinting, creating a registry, presenting proof of firearms training to purchase firearms, and other infringements.
The Framers included a Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights to recognize the People’s right to protect themselves not only from criminals but also from government tyranny, which they’d just used those guns to free themselves from King George III.
Would those exceptionally rational people have intended that one day a future federal or state legislature would require people to beg the government’s permission to exercise what they had described as inalienable rights?
The Democrats’ eviscerating the 2A/A1 would render all the Amendments at risk, vulnerable to annihilation by a legislature because, if they would do it to the 2A/A1, they’d do it to any Amendment.
Some of the fines collected through the immoral enforcement of these unconstitutional laws would go to “fund violence intervention programs and victim services.” Oh, that’s nice, you say. Tell me where there’s a connection between peaceable gun owners and victims of gun violence?
Peaceable gun owners don’t commit violent crimes with their guns. The Democrats’ legislation treats peaceable gun owners as if they are criminals simply for owning a gun. Do we make innocent drivers pay for the criminal acts people commit with their cars? Not last I checked.
Just look at the weaselly language the gun-stupid Democrats employed in “crafting” these human rights violations.
From HB 1386: “Gun violence remains a persistent health and safety threat for people across our state. In Washington, a person is killed by a firearm every 14 hours, and nearly half of all suicides are from firearms.” Again, how does restricting the rights of peaceable gun owners remedy that?
As a cop who served a blue city within a blue state for over two decades, I never investigated a single incident where a “firearm” killed someone—or a knife, hatchet, hammer, or cast-iron pot (yes, I had one of those).
In every instance, the person who pulled the trigger killed someone. This is not simply semantics. The Democrats are intentionally using inaccurate and spineless language to obscure the actual issue: it’s not about the gun; it’s about the person using the gun. The Dems don’t want you focusing on the criminal but on the gun alone.
One of the Dems’ goals is to turn law-abiding gun owners into lawbreakers overnight- to control them. These gun-stupid bills say they are “protecting the public from gun violence by…” followed by whatever unconstitutional intentions.
Do they truly believe that their new laws will magically make bad guys suddenly obey new laws when they already don’t follow the old laws. When have criminals ever done that? I think it’s in chapter one, page one of the Bad Guy Handbook: “To be a criminal, first, you must break the law.”
Conversely, from the Good Guy Handbook: “If you don’t want to be a criminal, don’t break the law.”
A gun-smart sign Photo: (Baron Maddock, CC Attribution 4.0)
A gun-stupid sign Photo: ((Kidfly182, CC Attribution 4.0)
If you were a criminal looking to commit a crime, which sign would make you think twice about entering, the one telling good guys not to carry guns or the one telling good guys guns are okay?
The supposed intent of these gun control laws is to prevent violent armed criminals from committing crimes with guns, right? Then, why is it that when you read the text, the laws primarily prevent peaceable gun owners from exercising their constitutional rights and do little to deter violent crime?
Also, as I alluded to in item #4 above, how is the new gun tax to buy a firearm not like a poll tax on voting? Voting and self-defense are both rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Paying poll taxes to exercise your right to vote is illegal, so how can paying gun taxes to exercise your 2A/A1 rights not be illegal?
The Southern Democrats didn’t want black Americans to exercise their right to vote during the Jim Crow era. So, to circumvent the Constitution, like they’re doing today with guns, they “allowed” the right to vote, but these folks, most of whom could not afford it, had to pay a tax before they could exercise their constitutional right to vote. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
The CEO of the Alliance for Gun Responsibility (Euphemism Alert!), Renée Hopkins, said, “There is no single policy that will reduce all gun violence. It’s a public health problem, and it takes a system of laws, safeguards, training, and programs that work together to keep guns out of dangerous hands and keep our communities safe.” She just described infringing.
Bullshit!
The way you “keep guns out of dangerous hands…” is by arresting, charging, convicting, and sentencing the armed criminals attached to those hands to very stiff sentences, including applying sentence enhancements for using guns to commit crimes. Incidentally, sentence enhancements for criminal gun use is the stiff sentencing these same Democrats are attempting to reduce.
Besides, what does “keep[ing] guns out of dangerous hands…” have to do with guns in peaceful people’s hands? I should be thrilled, though. At least, she acknowledged the “dangerous hands” of the criminals who hold the guns and pull the triggers rather than the weapon somehow firing itself.
Perhaps she’s referring to the part of the legislation that makes peaceable gun owners criminals when criminals steal their guns. But if she and her comrades are so concerned, how about making the penalties for stealing a gun prohibitive in the first place rather than penalizing gun owners when a criminal steals his or her firearm? And don’t reduce the existing effective laws such as sentence enhancements that actually do reduce criminal violence with guns.
How about an automatic 10 years in prison just for stealing a gun and then add another automatic five years if they use the gun to commit a crime. I’m thinking that would help dissuade criminals from stealing guns and then committing crimes with the weapons.
This dichotomy engaged in by the Democrat legislature, passing gun-stupid laws that mainly affect peaceable gun owners’ rights, while simultaneously passing laws that weaken gun-smart laws that genuinely help to prevent armed crimes, shows they’re not interested in reducing “gun violence.”
They’re only interested in taking guns away from peaceable gun owners and infringing on their rights to self-defense and life, all so they can maintain or increase their political power over peaceable Americans.
