For the second year in a row, the City of Baltimore has surpassed 300 homicides and the year isn’t finished, but the push for additional gun control is 2,900 miles away, where the Seattle-based Washington Ceasefire is planning a rally to ban so-called “assault weapons” on Monday, Dec. 19.
The Baltimore Sun detailed the most recent slaying, but there is one glaring omission. In Baltimore, as in all of Maryland, it is nearly impossible for anyone to get a permit to legally carry a firearm.
UPDATE: The Olympia rally is supposed to begin at 1:30 p.m. and continue to 3 p.m. at the Capitol.
Contrast Baltimore, with an estimated population of just over 623,000 with Seattle, with its estimated population of 659,000. In the Jet City, it is not only possible to get a license to carry a defensive sidearm, it is probable on any given day that a person might casually walk past another Seattleite who is peaceably armed.
According to the state Department of Licensing, there were 99,848 active concealed pistol licenses in King County, where Seattle is located, as of Dec. 1. Just over 20,000 of those CPLs were held by women. By Dec. 14, that number had risen to 100,556 CPLs in the county. So far this year, Seattle has recorded only about 18 homicides, according to the Seattle Police Department.
Yet Washington Ceasefire along with anti-gun Democrat Attorney General Bob Ferguson will be appearing at next Monday’s gun ban rally to gin up support for their proposed legislation. Any such measure is likely dead on arrival at the Legislature, which convenes Jan. 9, but its failure will likely provide a launch platform for another initiative next year or in 2018, so knee-jerk anti-gun liberals in Seattle can vote away someone else’s right to bear arms, as affirmed by the Washington and federal constitutions. Still, Ceasefire wants to create a “West Coast Wall” of restrictive gun control in California, Oregon and Washington.
This rally has ignited quite a discussion at the Waguns forum. There, one participant noted, “You are statistically more likely to be struck by lightning in a given year than you were likely to be killed by a rifle in the U.S. in the year 2014.” The same can be said for last year, especially in Washington State, where rifles are involved in a fraction of homicides in any given year. Last year’s total was three, according to the FBI Uniform Crime Report.
While they may not mention any of this during Monday’s rally – for which a permit still had not been issued as this story was posted – Washington gun owners know the facts, and facts are eventually hard to ignore.
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