Writing in the Aug. 17 edition of Crosscut, a popular Seattle-based news-and-views publication, the head of a local gun prohibition lobbying group takes a harsh look at the Republican challenger to anti-gun Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee, and in the process affirms what the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said about gun control laws.
CCRKBA, in an Aug. 20 news release, said homicide data from the Seattle Police Department and FBI Uniform Crime Reports confirm gun laws pushed by the billionaire-backed Alliance for Gun Responsibility “have been abject failures.”
As detailed by Liberty Park Press, the grassroots Second Amendment rights group, “In 2014, the Seattle-based Alliance for Gun Responsibility, a gun prohibition lobbying group largely funded by wealthy Seattle-area elitists pushed through Initiative 594, a so-called ‘universal background check’ measure that was supposed to keep guns out of the wrong hands. In 2015, the Seattle City Council pushed through the gun tax that has never come close to its revenue forecast. In 2018, the gun ban lobby rammed through Initiative 1639, which prohibits young adults from purchasing any kind of semiautomatic rifle and requires an ‘enhanced’ background check and 10-day waiting period, plus proof of training.”
All of these restrictive measures were sold to the public as tools to reduce violent gun-related crime. But Renee Hopkins, CEO at the Alliance, acknowledged in her Crosscut article, “New data released by the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office shows that shootings have spiked this year. More people were shot in King County in the first six months of 2020 than during the same period in any of the previous four years.”
Seattle is in King County, and voters there overwhelmingly supported the Alliance-backed initiatives. It is the state’s liberal stronghold and largest city.
The Crosscut opinion piece was critical of Republic Police Chief Loren Culp, the populist Eastern Washington lawman who stunned establishment Republicans during the primary by outpolling experienced politicians. Hopkins tries to paint Culp as an extremist based on statements in a Seattle Times report in which the small city police chief “compared refusals to enforce what he views as unjust gun laws to civil rights leader Rosa Parks’ famous 1955 refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white man.” She was also not impressed by this paragraph: “He also compared police unquestioningly enforcing gun laws to police and military officials in Nazi Germany who ‘arrested Jews and put them in concentration camps because it was the law.’”
But her real peeve with Culp appears to be his opposition to I-1639, the Alliance-backed measure now being challenged in federal court. Shortly after the initiative was passed in 2018, Culp announced before the Republic City Council at a packed public meeting he would not enforce it because he believes it is an unconstitutional infringement on Second Amendment rights.
“These outrageous comments show just how unfit to lead and out of touch with Washington voters Culp is,” Hopkins asserted. “Year after year, Washingtonians have voted for commonsense, evidence-based gun violence prevention policies and candidates dedicated to taking meaningful action to keep our communities safe.”
And according to the data, those policies appear to have been the “abject failures” CCRKBA said they were.
Liberty Park Press reached out to Culp for a reaction, but he did not immediately respond.
Prior to entering law enforcement, Culp operated a construction company for 20 years. He’s getting strong grassroots support across the state, where Gov. Inslee, seeking a third term after repeatedly extending closures and other COVID-19 restrictions. He has supported the gun control measures backed by the Alliance.
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CCRKBA to Seattle: Gun Control Laws Failed, Your Data Proves It
