If Sen. Bernie Sanders wins the Washington State primary March 10, it will come as no surprise that it will have been made possible by the Seattle vote, if one reads a report appearing in National Review detailing what it suggests is the city’s “hostile takeover” by Democratic socialists.
The story, authored by Christopher F. Rufo, is headlined “Seattle is Socialism’s Laboratory, and It’s Not Pretty,” is a grim look at the Jet City’s continued slide leftward.
“Led by the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign and the ‘squad’ of newly elected congresswomen,” Rufo writes, “the hard-left coalition has laid out an ambitious agenda to transform the United States into a democratic socialist nation.”
In the firearms community, many grassroots Second Amendment activists are convinced part of this effort is the push for increasingly restrictive gun control laws. In Washington, Virginia, Oregon and other states, liberal lawmakers have been proposing new gun control measures, ignoring what appears to be an increasingly energized backlash of gun rights activism.
There is no coincidence that major gun control proposals in the state Legislature are sponsored or supported by Seattle-area Democrats. Likewise, in Virginia, Democrats who captured the General Assembly majority in Richmond in last November’s election, began talking gun control immediately after all the votes were counted.
The National Review article is hardly flattering.
“After the socialist Left’s stunning victory over business-backed moderates in last year’s municipal elections,” the article says, “Seattle has effectively become the nation’s laboratory for socialist policies.”
Months ago, anti-gunners acknowledged the entire state is something of a test tube for gun control.
“What can opponents of socialism do,” the National Review asks. “First, recognize that it must be fought on all fronts. While the socialists form a small minority of the national electorate, they have demonstrated the capability of seizing power in America’s major cities, which are home to much of the digital “means of production” in tech, media, advertising, entertainment, and research.”
That much is definitely happening within the Second Amendment community. Traditionally lethargic Evergreen State gun owners appear to have had enough. They’ve been showing up in strong numbers for hearings on restrictive gun bills so effectively that the Seattle-based Alliance for Gun Responsibility—the billionaire-backed gun prohibition lobbying group—sent an email blast earlier in the week, and reported here yesterday, lamenting, “Our opposition is tireless in their work against this bill and they are more organized than ever before. They are calling and emailing legislators every single day and if we don’t do the same thing, we will lose.”
Gun owners believe a loss for the Alliance is a victory for rights protected by the state and federal constitutions.
There are now five candidates running as Republicans to take the governorship away from Democrats for the first time in more than 30 years. Conservatives are campaigning already for some key positions in an effort to at least balance the Legislature, and there may be some challengers to Democrat members of Congress.
For the bigger picture, National Review’s Rufo had some advice: “The business sector in cities such as Seattle must recognize that the progressive-socialists are no longer interested in gaining reasonable concessions; they intend to overthrow capitalism itself.”
