While Democrat lawmakers in Olympia—the state capital of Washington—are rushing to add further restrictions on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, a judge in Pierce County on Monday halved the bail for a 17-year-old double-murder suspect, igniting a blistering river of public sarcasm.
KOMO News—the Seattle-based ABC affiliate in Western Washington—is reporting how Judge Joseph Evans reduced bail for Isaiah Davion Williams from $2 million to $1 million at a Monday hearing. Williams’ family and attorney had asked bail to be reduced to $250,000.
He has been charged as an adult in this case with two counts of first-degree murder.
Williams is being held in the slaying of two other teens outside of a Spanaway house party March 29. The shooting, caught on security camera video, reveals a wild scene with scores of teens scrambling for cover.
The two dead teens have been identified as 15-year-old Joaquin Ramirez and 19-year-old Hector Gonzalez-Valdez. Turns out they were all carrying handguns, which is illegal under existing Evergreen State law.
When Ammoland initially reported this case, nobody could have anticipated Judge Evans’ bail reduction. Still, the family may be unable to post bond or make bail, and Williams remains in jail, with a further court appearance reportedly slated next week.
As reported by KOMO, the family and the attorney are describing Williams in almost saintly terms. His grandmother reportedly wrote in a letter to the court that the suspect is “the most caring, loving, and talented young man I know.” The defense attorney also described his client as “a polite, respectful young man” and “an accomplished athlete.”
But reaction to this case is overwhelmingly negative and dripping with sarcasm.
“So, why did he have a gun with him,” one person asks.
Another observed, “I was ‘polite and respectful’ when I was 17. Yet I didn’t carry a gun and shoot it into a crowd at a gathering of my peers.”
More than 100 people have commented so far at the KOMO website.
Others point to Williams’ previous legal troubles including assault and unlawful possession of a firearm, which turned out to have been stolen from a gun dealer in a different county, according to a story in the Seattle Times.
It is against this backdrop that Democrats in the state legislature have been pushing two measures ratcheting down on the gun rights of honest Evergreen State citizens. One of those bills—House Bill 1163—is the hotly contested permit-to-purchase mandate which has drawn fury from grassroots activists, including Daniel Mitchell, firearms retailer and head of the Washington Civil Rights Association. While testifying before the Senate Law & Justice Committee against HB 1163 last month, Mitchell identified himself to the lawmakers as “Plaintiff No. 1,” and promised to be first with federal lawsuit if the bill becomes law.
The other measure is Senate Bill 5098, which places restrictions on carrying firearms in many places, although there is an exemption for people with active concealed pistol licenses. According to the most recent data from the state Department of Licensing, more than 700,000 Washington citizens have active CPLs.
Those citizens will be penalized beginning in November 2026 when they, too, will be expected to provide proof of finishing a state-approved firearms safety course to include a live fire exercise. This mandate has been compared to a literacy test for voting.
Opposition to both bills has far outpaced support, by as much as 10-to-1, with people submitting both written and oral testimony. Yet, anti-gun Democrats appear confident they can adopt more restrictions and retain control.
Washington has long been considered a “petri dish” for anti-gun activities. The rush for restrictive gun control began in 2014 with the passage of gun control Initiative 594, and it was ramped up in 2018 with the passage of Initiative 1639. Other gun restrictions including bans on so-called “large-capacity magazines” and “assault weapons” have been passed by the Democrat-controlled legislature, but none of these laws prevented the number of murders to double statewide over the past 10 years, a fact which has been presented repeatedly to state lawmakers.
If these bills are signed into law by Democrat Gov. Bob Ferguson, who lobbied for the gun and magazine bans and has historically been allied with the billionaire-backed Alliance for Gun Responsibility, there will undoubtedly be swift court challenges, with Mitchell quite possibly being the first plaintiff.
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About Dave Workman
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.
