BELLEVUE, WA – An increase in the number of shootings and gun-related homicides in Seattle during the past year is more evidence of the failure of gun control laws adopted in recent years, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.
Shootings were up a reported 6 percent over 2018, and there were 18 fatal shootings in the city, the highest number since the city adopted a “gun violence tax” on the sale of firearms and ammunition, according to Seattle Police data. The numbers also show more reports of shots fired in the years following passage of Initiative 594 in 2014. Prior to that year, incidents of shots fired never topped 300. Since 2015—the first full year following passage of the “universal background check” measure championed by the Seattle-based gun prohibition lobby—the number of shooting incidents has not dropped below 300.
“We find it beyond ironic,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “that the exact opposite of what gun control proponents predicted has occurred. Their extremist agenda has failed to reduce gun-related crime as was implied when they pushed through their various measures.
“More people were wounded in Seattle shootings last year than any year in recent memory,” he continued. “While there were fewer overall shooting incidents, they can’t really declare a victory because 73 people were wounded and 18 were killed, and that’s more injuries and fatalities than any time since 2012, when the city also logged 18 gun-related homicides.
“A check of the FBI Uniform Crime Reports shows the number of gun-related homicides statewide has crept upward since 2016,” Gottlieb added. “In 2016, there were 127 firearm-related slayings and in 2018, the most recent year for which FBI data is available, that number had risen to 138. That’s not what we would call a success story where restrictive gun control measures are concerned.
“These revelations are especially important as the Washington Legislature opens to consider even more gun control proposals,” he observed. “We’re not sure the Evergreen State can stand many more of these so-called ‘gun safety’ efforts. It hasn’t gotten safer in Seattle or elsewhere around Washington with passage of these laws, but the gun prohibition crowd simply won’t admit their gun control crusade has failed miserably.”
With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms 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. The Citizens Committee can be reached by phone at (425) 454-4911, on the Internet at www.ccrkba.org or by email to InformationRequest@ccrkba.org.
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