A homeless encampment in Seattle, located near a senior facility in the city’s Highland Park neighborhood, is reportedly posing a genuine threat to the elderly residents because they are “regularly startled by gunfire erupting from the encampment,” Fox News reported.
Seattle is home to a billionaire-backed gun prohibition lobbying group which has bankrolled two restrictive statewide gun ontrol initiatives since 2014 on the premise they would reduce gun-related violence. That has not happened, and a recent report in Ammoland shows how Seattle is failing, and a report last week from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs shows homicides and violent crime have gone up since last year.
TGM frequently checks data from the Seattle Police Department showing how homicides in the city have doubled in the past few years.
According to an earlier TGM report, Washington is at the bottom in terms of police manpower per each 1,000 residents.
Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Bellevue, Wash,-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, said the situation is dire.
“At this point,” he observed in a recent CCRKBA news release, “it is fair to ask what good has any of these laws accomplished? These gun control measures have only helped make people less safe, and it should be clear to voters they’ve been deceived by the gun prohibition lobby, which will no doubt try to spin the new report to suggest even stricter measures are necessary.”
For the senior citizens living near the homeless camp, the city seems incapable of taking decisive action. Diane Radischat, a resident of the senior complex, told KOMO News that other residents “are afraid to go out at night.”
“We’ve never had issues with guns before,” she said. “This is a constant issue with guns with the present occupants.”
Seattle is the hub of King County, which boasts the highest number of active concealed pistol licenses of any county in the state. There are more than 110,700 active CPLs in the county, roughly one-sixth of the entire state, which had more than 689,000 active licenses according to the most recent report from the state Department of Licensing.
There is no indication anyone with a gun in the homeless camp is licensed to carry.
While Seattle authorities seem unable or unwilling to address the problems with the homeless encampment’s alleged frequent gunfire, Mayor Bruce Harrell remains devoted to gun control and to eroding or repealing the state’s 40-year-old firearms preemption statute.
