UPDATED 11/6 – A fatal stabbing at the Seattle Center last Friday has some lessons for anti-gunners across the country that they don’t want to hear.
One reason may be that the suspect, identified as David Lee Morris, was held at bay for several minutes by a legally-armed citizen until police arrived and subdued him. According to the Washington State Department of Licensing, there are now 602,282 active concealed pistol licenses in the state. That’s a new record, and it reflects a growing public interest in self-protection and personal responsibility.
That armed citizen appears to have acted well within the parameters of state statute. But not a peep about the incident has been heard from the gun prohibition lobby. That citizen was identified as Scott Brown, who works at a stand in the Armory food court, published reports said.
Morris is now reportedly being held on $2 million bail while an investigation of first-degree murder is being conducted. The victim, identified as Gabrielle Garcia, 28, was reportedly the mother of Morris’ 5-year-old son, who was present when the fatal attack occurred. Garcia died later at Harborview Medical Center, according to published reports.
This case underscores the fact that gun control laws don’t prevent deadly crimes, because the alleged murder weapon was a knife.
Another truth that nobody seems to have mention is that protective orders, which the victim reportedly had against the man who allegedly killed her, are no substitute for a defensive tool if somebody decides to commit mayhem.
A few years ago in Berlin Township, N.J., Carol Bowne also had a protective order against a former boyfriend. She applied for a permit to buy a gun to keep in her home for personal protection, which the local police department allowed to gather dust for several weeks. Bowne was brutally murdered; stabbed multiple times in her own driveway. That case got national attention, primarily because the police sat on her application for a permit to buy a gun.
The gun prohibition lobby in Seattle might like to see laws in Washington mirror those in New Jersey. Buried in the language of Initiative 1639, which is on the Evergreen State ballot, is a provision to remove language from a state gun safety pamphlet that reminds gun buyers about the state preemption law that prohibits local municipalities from adopting their own gun laws.
Many believe there is no coincidence at all that Seattle and at least two other cities, along with King County, have recently adopted gun storage ordinances that appear to clearly violate the state statute. It is also no coincidence that the gun prohibition lobbying group pushing I-1639 is headquartered in Seattle, and funded by billionaire elitists who live there, along with anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety lobbying group. It’s all designed to challenge the state law, which should be defended by State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, but he apparently hasn’t lifted a finger. He is on record supporting the gun control initiative.
Instead, the Second Amendment Foundation and National Rifle Association have filed lawsuits to protect the state law.
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Statistics, more people are fatally stabbed in any given year than are murdered with rifles or shotguns combined, including semiautomatics. It is definitely that way in Washington.
The Seattle Center incident could have happened anywhere in the United States, but nobody is talking about banning knives, nor is this case being called “knife violence.” It’s just violence, and an armed private citizen’s intervention – not some gun control law – possibly prevented it from becoming worse.
