This excellent article from Apr 30, 2024, appears here with fresh updates.
A new study listing Washington as the eighth most dangerous state in the country refutes the hype from national gun control groups, which give the state high marks for gun laws, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms observed.
The study, by the Simmrin Law Group, is being reported in newspapers across the Evergreen State.
Yet Washington gets an “A-” on the Giffords gun control scorecard, while the Everytown for Gun Safety gun prohibition lobby group brags that Washington is “#9 in the country for gun law strength.”
“Evidently,” CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb observed, “the gun prohibition lobby is living in an alternate universe. Giving the state such high ratings probably won’t make the families of violent crime victims feel any better. We’re still waiting for anti-gunners to explain how, after almost ten years of pushing increasingly restrictive gun laws, which only penalize law-abiding citizens, the number of Evergreen State murders has more than doubled. Clamping down on gun rights was supposed to reduce murder and mayhem.
“For that matter,” he continued, “perhaps Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who has championed these restrictive gun laws, might also offer an explanation as to why the number of murders statewide has gone up more than 100 percent since 2014. He’s the top law enforcement official in the state, and he’s running for governor, so he needs to explain to the voters how this has happened on his watch. Maybe he won’t be satisfied until Washington leads the list of dangerous states, so he can brag about being Number One for violent crime.”
A look back at FBI Uniform Crime Reports and data from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs is damning, Gottlieb noted. In 2014, Washington posted 172 homicides, and by 2022—the most recent year for which data is available from state or federal law enforcement sources—there were 394 slayings. Seattle, where the region’s most active and wealthy gun prohibition lobbying group is headquartered, set a new homicide record last year.
“The data is straightforward and tells us everything we need to know,” Gottlieb stated. “Washington’s restrictive gun control experiment has been an abject failure. It’s time for Ferguson and his fellow anti-gunners to admit it so we can repeal these restrictive laws, regroup and take a different approach to fighting crime, starting with locking up criminals and leaving honest gun owners alone.”
With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (www.ccrkba.org) is one of the nation’s premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States.
