Another city in western Washington appears to be preparing to test how far it can get against the state’s 35-year-old preemption statute, and gun rights advocates in any state with a similar law should pay attention to what is happening in the Evergreen State.
As Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) put it last week, what is now happening in Washington could be coming to your state.
Tonight, the Kirkland City Council is scheduled to hear a special presentation on “Gun Safety and Community Safety Outreach.” It’s the result of earlier sessions that have come up with suggested “solutions” to so-called “gun violence” in a state that pales in comparison to places like Maryland and Illinois, where more people are killed in major cities than in the entire state of Washington in any given year. In 2016, for example, according to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, there were 195 murders in Washington of which 127 were firearm-related. That same year, there were 762 murders in Chicago, and another 318 slayings in Baltimore.
The Kirkland council meeting begins at 7:30 p.m., preceded by a study session at 6 o’clock.
Among ideas from the public are suggestions that indicate the people who made them have forgotten, or simply don’t believe, that owning a firearm is a right protected by both the federal and state constitutions. Their ideas indicate they think having a gun is a government-regulated privilege. Recommendations include:
- Longer waiting periods to buy guns;
- Limits on the number of firearms one person can have
- “Create hoops you jump through to drive a car – many hours and tests…”
- “Obtaining a license for a gun should be like being a nurse, a teacher, or a driver’s license – renewals, training, etc.”
- “Bans of automatic & semi-automatic weapons”
- “Close gun show loopholes”
- “Ban all guns”
And there are lots more suggestions listed, including licensing and registration of gun owners and their firearms, mandatory insurance, required training, forbid the open carry of firearms and carrying guns in cars; pretty much the wish list of the gun prohibition lobby.
One Kirkland resident, Larry Kilbride, a Marine Corps veteran and self-realized rights activist, will be at the meeting. He contacted CCRKBA’s headquarters in Bellevue early Tuesday for help in sounding the alarm.
So far, Seattle, Everett, Edmonds and now Kirkland are considering or have adopted local gun regulations that clearly collide with the state preemption law, passed in 1983.
Kilbride is a senior citizen who opposes attempts to further erode his gun rights. His is the kind of activism that can become infectious. He’s hoping so. He understands that lethargy is the enemy of protecting one’s rights.
