Finally the Seattle press admits that I-594 is ‘gun control’

Examiner – by Dave Workman

After 18 months of reporting and editorializing, and not until the day after the election, did the headlines acknowledge today what gun rights activists have been saying so long about Initiative 594: It’s a gun control measure, as affirmed by the Seattle Times and Seattle P-I.com.

And Wednesday morning, I-594 backers held a press conference to make it abundantly clear that passage of their 18-page gun control scheme was just the first step in pushing a more far-reaching agenda. That also affirmed what the firearms community had been saying all along, and been essentially pigeon-holed as paranoids by gun prohibitionists.  

If ever one person had the right to say “I told you so,” it would be Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Protect Our Gun Rights campaign pushing rival Initiative 591, which did not fare so well, apparently falling short of passage. Gottlieb, who chairs the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, is perhaps the highest profile gun advocate involved in the dueling gun initiatives battle that ended last night. Or did it?

There are already rumblings about a legal challenge to I-594, though nobody has stepped forward with an announcement. POGR announced via e-mail this afternoon that, “A preliminary analysis is being done on possible legal challenges to the opposing measure.” Meanwhile, some gun rights activists are already planning a demonstration next month in Olympia.

Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat and Seattle P-I.com columnist Joel Connelly both had comments today that admitted this was a gun control effort. Connelly earlier this week had carefully described the I-594 effort as a “gun safety” campaign. Apparently, now that the gun prohibition lobby has won, it’s safe to acknowledge the truth. Times readers are weighing in with a rather lively discussion.

Connelly observed, “The gun-control movement in Washington, launched after the mass murder of first graders in Newtown, Connecticut, won an historic victory Tuesday as returns showed Initiative 594 winning statewide, with a top-heavy majority in populous King County.”

Westneat wrote, “The big story of Election 2014, other than Republicans taking the U.S. Senate, was that gun control finally got its breakthrough. In a big way.”

Westneat also alluded to Washington’s “share of mass shootings in recent years,” without also noting that none of these incidents would have been prevented by I-594. His list included the slaying of four Lakewood police officers in 2009, a case in which at least one of the guns used by the killer had been stolen. When Maurice Clemmons took one of the slain officers’ guns before fleeing the scene, he didn’t pause for a background check, either.

The columnist mentioned Cheryl Stumbo, a victim of the Seattle Jewish Federation shooting in 2006. The killer in that case passed a background check when he bought his gun at retail.

Then there was the Café Racer shooting in 2012, where four patrons were killed. The gunman subsequently murdered a woman several blocks away in downtown Seattle and stole her car. But he had also cleared background checks at a Tacoma gun shop.

Earlier this year, a man opened fire at Seattle Pacific University with a shotgun. Court documents said he legally obtained the gun sometime in the past.

And then Westneat mentioned the Marysville-Pilchuck school tragedy late last month. The teen gunman in that case brought the handgun from home. Authorities say the pistol had been legally purchased.

Last night, the Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility sent an e-mail over the name of Gabby Giffords, the former Arizona congresswoman who survived an assassination attempt in Tucson. The gunman in that case had also passed a background check. Her message also admitted that “the fight’s not over” and asserted that, “The gun lobby is already plotting their next legislative attack, and there is much more work to be done.”

After this morning’s press event, that message is disingenuous at best, because it is the gun control lobby that is telegraphing its plan to push for even more restrictions, even before the dust has settled on Tuesday’s election. However, it is probably no more disingenuous than the reportage over the past 18 months that has portrayed the I-594 campaign as a “gun safety” effort about “gun sales” when it was really about gun control, which this column, and Gottlieb, had been saying from the beginning.

http://www.examiner.com/article/finally-the-seattle-press-admits-that-i-594-is-gun-control