Washington State Gun Groups Agenda Ignores History of Failure

The right to keep and bear arms doesn’t vanish at the state line. It’s in our Constitution, a federal document that supersedes all state laws, especially after the 14th Amendment.

Despite this simple fact, a lot of states figure they can and should restrict a basic, fundamental right like owning a gun.

One of the states that’s been on a rampage over the last decade or so is Washington. They’ve enacted a long list of gun control measures and anti-gun groups are generally pushing still more.

However, in the midst of the latest push, a gun control group is being called out on past failures.

f there was any doubt among Washington state gun owners and Second Amendment activists that the state Democratic party is joined at the hip with the billionaire-backed gun prohibition lobby in Seattle, it has been removed by the revelation of the party’s 2025 tax agenda.

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The seventh item on the 2025 legislative agenda published by the Alliance for Gun Responsibility says this:

“ESTABLISH A TAX ON FIREARM SALES AND AMMUNITION: Gun violence costs Washington state an average of $11.8 billion every year, ranging from direct medical costs and criminal justice services to a lost quality of life for victims and their families after a tragedy. Washington must raise revenue to support victims and service programs via an excise tax on the sale of firearms and ammunition.”

The Alliance notes on its website, “the rate of gun suicide increased 19 percent and gun homicide increased 34 percent from 2010 to 2019. Beginning in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic increased the risks of all types of gun violence. Washington, like the country as a whole, saw a record number of murders in 2020. Fortunately, the suicide rate declined in Washington and nationally, defying most predictions. While it is not possible to identify one reason, it’s clear that the presence of suicide prevention policies like Extreme Risk Protection Orders, voluntary waivers, and safe storage incentives, work to reduce gun suicide.”

Conveniently overlooked by the Alliance was any mention of the Second Amendment Foundation, which championed the Safer Homes suicide prevention project with the University of Washington’s Forefront project back in 2016.

Interestingly, the rise in homicide happened after the Alliance pushed through the first of two restrictive gun control initiatives, in 2014. Initiative 594 requires background checks on all but a few firearms transactions. According to data from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC), in 2014 there were 135 homicides in the Evergreen State. By 2019—the year following adoption of the Alliance’s second anti-gun initiative (I-1639)—the number had climbed to 201.

Further revealing the false promises of the Alliance’s anti-gun agenda, WASPC data shows 302 homicides in 2020, followed in 2021 by 325 murders, 384 killings in 2022 and 376 murders last year, more than twice the number posted back in 2014. Gun rights advocates look at the numbers and suggest that anti-gunners must have an odd definition of “success.”

I always find it amusing how gun control groups never remotely seem to miss an opportunity to try and link a pro-gun rights law with an increase in homicides, even if that link is tenuous at best, but completely ignore the exact same kind of correlation when it goes against their agenda.

Funny how that shakes out, ain’t it?

Expanded background checks are billed as necessary to stop such things from happening, but the truth is that those who represent a problem aren’t buying guns from regular gun owners in the first place. They’re not even trying in most cases.

I’m not going to say that the law caused the increase in homicides as there are too many other potential variables to make any such claim but that has never stopped your average anti-gunner. And if homicides had dropped, they undoubtedly would have claimed the law was the reason.

As is the way of their people.

But the problem is that when an organization pushes an agenda that fails as often as gun control groups’ efforts do, the people need to understand that. They need to understand that despite claims to the contrary, the rules don’t work.

Unfortunately, in Washington state as in most other places, the media isn’t going to tell a soul.