Proof WA Dems Glued to Anti-Gunners; Seattle Picks ‘2A Inappropriate’ Chief
Evergreen State Democrats are joined at the hip with the gun prohibition lobby. iStock-884168778
If there was any doubt among Washington state gun owners and Second Amendment activists that the state Democratic party is joined at the hip with the billionaire-backed gun prohibition lobby in Seattle, it has been removed by the revelation of the party’s 2025 tax agenda.
Apparently intercepted by Republican state lawmakers and exposed first by conservative activist Anthony Mixer and then by popular Seattle broadcast journalist/podcaster Brandi Kruse, Democrats’ talking points on new taxes include this tenet:
“Tax on Sale of Ammunition & Firearms: Imposes a new 11% tax on sales of ammunition, firearms, and parts. The tax is in addition to any tax imposed by federal, state or local governments. The new tax does not apply to sales made to federal, state, local, or tribal governments to supply law enforcement or the military.”
Page from Washington State Democrat tax strategy for 2025. (Screen snip from Facebook)
The seventh item on the 2025 legislative agenda published by the Alliance for Gun Responsibility says this:
“ESTABLISH A TAX ON FIREARM SALES AND AMMUNITION: Gun violence costs Washington state an average of $11.8 billion every year, ranging from direct medical costs and criminal justice services to a lost quality of life for victims and their families after a tragedy. Washington must raise revenue to support victims and service programs via an excise tax on the sale of firearms and ammunition.”
The Alliance notes on its website, “the rate of gun suicide increased 19 percent and gun homicide increased 34 percent from 2010 to 2019. Beginning in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic increased the risks of all types of gun violence. Washington, like the country as a whole, saw a record number of murders in 2020. Fortunately, the suicide rate declined in Washington and nationally, defying most predictions. While it is not possible to identify one reason, it’s clear that the presence of suicide prevention policies like Extreme Risk Protection Orders, voluntary waivers, and safe storage incentives, work to reduce gun suicide.”
Conveniently overlooked by the Alliance was any mention of the Second Amendment Foundation, which championed the Safer Homes suicide prevention project with the University of Washington’s Forefront project back in 2016.
Interestingly, the rise in homicide happened after the Alliance pushed through the first of two restrictive gun control initiatives, in 2014. Initiative 594 requires background checks on all but a few firearms transactions. According to data from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC), in 2014 there were 135 homicides in the Evergreen State. By 2019—the year following adoption of the Alliance’s second anti-gun initiative (I-1639)—the number had climbed to 201.
Further revealing the false promises of the Alliance’s anti-gun agenda, WASPC data shows 302 homicides in 2020, followed in 2021 by 325 murders, 384 killings in 2022 and 376 murders last year, more than twice the number posted back in 2014. Gun rights advocates look at the numbers and suggest that anti-gunners must have an odd definition of “success.”
Source: Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs
But keep in mind the Alliance also says this on their website:
“Every year, 781 Washingtonians are killed by guns, a rate of 10.2 per 100,000 people. Someone is killed by a gun every 12 hours in Washington state. More people are killed by guns than die in car accidents in Washington.”
Nobody is ever “killed by a gun” in Washington or anywhere else. They are killed by people misusing guns, for the firearm has no brain or conscience. It is an inanimate object, only—as Alan Ladd said in Shane—“as good or bad as the man using it.” It’s an example of carefully chosen semantics.
Not only have Democrats once again openly shown Washington gun owners and advocates their hostility for Second Amendment rights by pushing the Alliance agenda, but the group also reveals in its press release that anti-gun Democrat Rep. Liz Berry (36th District) will be the prime sponsor of another of its agenda items, a permit-to-purchase scheme which was rejected last year.
In the same release, the Alliance claims “research conducted by Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, if Washington had adopted a Permit-to-Purchase law when Connecticut did, there would have been an estimated 1,205 fewer gun deaths in Washington over the first 10 years of implementation.” The group is essentially pushing what is, at best, speculation as fact.
The Alliance is comfortably at home in Seattle, where anti-gun Mayor Bruce Harrell announced the hiring of Madison, Wisconsin Police Chief Shon Barnes as the new chief of Seattle’s embattled police department. This came less than 24 hours after KTTH talk host Jason Rantz wrote about Barnes’ contention—in a 2022 interview with a Madison broadcast journalist—the Second Amendment “may not be appropriate for 2022” in reaction to that year’s school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. His report at MyNorthwest.com raised a small ruckus among gun rights advocates.
The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, which has been critical of Harrell in the past over his efforts to repeal the state’s 40-year-old preemption law, also voiced concerns about Barnes’ remarks. CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb noted in a statement, “Simply because society may have evolved since the Bill of Rights was ratified does not mean we should surrender the right of self-defense, much less the right to keep and bear arms.”
He also observed, “Our rights never go out of style.”
According to a statement from Harrell’s office, “Under Chief Barnes, so far in 2024, Madison has seen a 67% decrease in homicides, a 40% decrease in auto thefts, a 36% decrease in burglaries, and a 19% decrease in reports of shots fired.”
The career lawman will have his skills tested. Seattle has seen its number of homicides triple since the city council, with Harrell on board at the time, pushed through a city tax on gun and ammunition sales back in 2015. In 2016, Seattle reported 20 murders for the entire year, according to Seattle Police Department data. Last year, the city hit a record, according to the popular site on “X” called Seattle Homicide, which is not connected to the Seattle Police Department.
Recent history suggests every ramped-up gun control effort in Washington state has been followed by worse violent crime statistics. If this keeps up, Washington will be known as the Evergone State.
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
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