The King County clowncil unveiled their plan to ban “Semi-automatic, High Velocity Weapons.” They call disarming the innocent public "common sense."
In a July 23rd
op-ed,
Joe McDermott, the Council Chair of King County, Washington, introduced
a multi-prong “King County Gun Safety Action Plan” aimed at reducing
gun violence.
The
plan
requires that warning signs be posted at gun shops, as well as any place
a firearm is sold or discharged, to advise about “the very real and
significant risk to health and life inherent with firearm ownership.”
(The language of these signs is to be approved by the local board of
health.) Second, gun owners will be required to securely store firearms
and ammunition at all times and in all places. And, citing recent school
tragedies, the third proposal instructs the County to collaborate with
local youth to identify “youth-informed solutions” for reducing gun
crime. According to
one source,
a failure to post the warning signage would expose violators to civil
penalties of up to $100 per day; a violation of the storage mandate
would be a criminal misdemeanor
punishable by jail time of up to 90 days and a fine of up to $1,000.
Additional proposals put forward include an ordinance to compel the
King County Sheriff’s Office to destroy forfeited weapons in working
condition and those that have been turned in by gun owners, and a demand
that Washington State lawmakers repeal the current
firearm preemption law.
This would clear the way for even more drastic “solutions.” Upon repeal
of the state preemption law, the King County Gun Safety Action Plan
will
immediately
impose a ban on the sale and possession of “semi-automatic, high
velocity weapons” and “high capacity magazines,” and raise the minimum
age for possession or purchase of a firearm to 21 years of age.
Apart from the preemption issue, the Action Plan’s
requirement
that every gun owner securely store firearms and ammunition “at all
times, on all premises” would mean that firearms cannot legally be kept
available for immediate use by police and corrections officers, those
being victimized by a domestic abuser or stalker, operators of
businesses in high-crime areas, ordinary homeowners, and other
law-abiding residents of the state. According to a
2015 report on crime
by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC), a
crime against the person occurs every 6.8 minutes in the state,
including a violation of a no-contact or protection order every 40.4
minutes. Property crimes are even more frequent and take place at the
rate of one every 1.8 minutes, with a robbery every two hours and a
burglary every 13.2 minutes (the report lists robbery and burglary as
property, not person, crimes because the primary object is the taking of
something of value from the victim).
~~~~~~~~
A Seattle and King County Public Health analysis on
firearms and crime statistics
dated the same year is equally informative. Three out of four firearm
hospitalizations in King County were due to unspecified “assaults.” The
great majority of firearm deaths were suicides rather than homicides
(68% and 29%, respectively), although for children 18 years and under,
firearm suicides occurred at about half the rate of homicides.
Accidental shootings made up a very small part of firearm homicides –
between one and four percent. Motives for homicides include robbery, and
gang and drug crimes. For victims aged between 18 and 29, for example,
21% of homicides were gang-related and 15% were drug-related; “robbery”
accounted for a further five percent, and “revenge” was listed for eight
percent.
The same document notes the absence of information tying these homicides to “risk factors” like “firearm ownership.” A
statistical analysis in 2014
on King County gun homicides is more explicit: “Firearm ownership
history (e.g. stolen, legally obtained) not collected.” In addition,
information on criminal history was “missing” for three out of five
suspects (58%), although out of the remaining group, almost ten percent
had a prior conviction, more than five percent were on parole or
probation, and almost six percent were wanted on warrants or other
charges or were out on bail or bond at the time of the offense.
~~~~~~~~
Regardless of how King County residents keep their firearms, “firearm
ownership” or storage practices have not been associated in any way
with these crimes. To the extent information is available, the data
indicate a sizable proportion of gun homicides involved criminals who
were likely already precluded from lawfully possessing a firearm under
state or federal law. (It follows, too, that gang bangers, robbers, and
the other perpetrators of gun crimes will comply with the proposed “safe
storage” mandate in the same manner as they obey existing laws on legal
weapon possession and use.)
The most peculiar part of the King County Action Plan is the
comprehensive ban on the possession and sale of “semi-automatic, high
velocity weapons.” Without more, the language is ridiculously overbroad
and will encompass most modern firearms, air guns, BB guns, and flare
guns. Besides making other parts of the plan redundant, this would
certainly run afoul of the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment and
the Washington State Constitution (the “right of the individual citizen
to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state, shall not be
impaired…”).
Overall, it is hard to tell how the components of the Action Plan
will accomplish any meaningful change in public safety or the behavior
of violent criminals, apart from making honest citizens more vulnerable
by impeding their ability to defend themselves. What is obvious, though,
is the credibility gap: anti-gun activists who roll out purported
“common sense” gun laws, together with the oft-raised assertion that
they aren’t going to take anyone’s guns away, shouldn’t be surprised at
how few people are willing to take them at their word.
National Rifle Association, Institute for Legislative Action
