Listeners to Friday morning’s KIRO-FM news broadcasts were treated repeatedly to a one-sided report regarding this weekend’s Folklife Festival and the Seattle Center, and the attempt by the city to ban guns from the Center and city parks facilities.
These reports quoted Bob Scales, formerly with the mayor’s office under anti-gunner Greg Nickels and now with the city attorney’s office.
This column spoke with Alan Gottlieb, executive vice president of the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation, which sued the city over its gun ban attempt and won. According to Gottlieb, KIRO did not attempt to contact him for an opposing view, or an explanation about the successful lawsuit or Washington’s model firearms preemption statute. SAF was joined in that lawsuit by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, the National Rifle Association, Washington Arms Collectors and five private citizens.
“Legally-armed Washington residents, whether they live in Seattle or just visit there, have just as much right to be on public property as any other citizen.”—Alan Gottlieb
KIRO is using this weekend’s Bumbershoot to highlight the 2008 shooting incident that gave Nickels the excuse to push for a ban. Nickels knew he lacked the authority to impose such a ban, and he said so in a letter to Washington State House Speaker Frank Chopp that SAF distributed to members of the public who attended a Dec. 15, 2008 public hearing on what was then a proposed ban. Nickels skipped that meeting, but his department heads were there to hear one opponent after another explain why the ban is illegal.
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels is asserting that he has the authority to skirt Washington State’s long-standing firearms preemption statute, but in a 2006 letter to House Speaker Frank Chopp, he admitted that state law prevents him from taking any such action…
In his letter to Speaker Chopp, dated May 4, 2006, Mayor Nickels acknowledged that “State law preempts any and all local regulations related to firearms. Our hands are tied at the local level and we are unable to adopt any local laws to protect our residents from gun crime.”—SAF press release
Back in 1983, the Legislature adopted a state preemption statute placing sole authority for gun regulation in the Evergreen State entirely in its hands. The statute has stood the test of time and been copied by more than two dozen other states. Simply, this law prevents cities from creating their own gun laws, thus eliminating the possibility of a “checkerboard” of differing laws from one municipality to the next.
It was a good idea then, and it remains so today. Nickels, and now Mike McGinn – essentially shilling for Washington CeaseFire – want to strike down state preemption, and the city parks gun ban would be the first step.
Only 8 percent of Seattle residents commenting on the idea support it, according to figures from the mayor’s office. Ninety-two percent of Seattleites who opined rejected the idea. Only 2 percent of respondents who live outside the city support the proposed ban, and 98 percent oppose the idea. Deadline for comments was last Sunday. SAF has learned that the city received 1,088 comments via e-mail, and only 44 supported the mayor’s proposal. Ten more telephone comments were received, with only one favoring the ban.—SAF press release
The shooting incident that precipitated this was a single event. There had never been a shooting before during the Folklife Festival in its 37 years, and the circumstances surrounding this one are still a matter of debate. The fellow with the gun had it in an ankle rig. Apparently someone else spotted it. There was a scuffle. The pistol, a Glock 9mm, discharged one round that wounded two people, both of whom later told reporters that they opposed the Nickels gun ban. The man with the gun later pleaded guilty.
An opinion poll by the mayor’s office found dismal support for the ban. Nickels, in his final days as mayor in 2009, initiated the ban anyway. SAF, NRA and its partners promptly sued. Three months later, Judge Catherine Shaffer ruled the ban illegal under state statute. The city appealed and oral arguments before the State Court of Appeals were held earlier this spring.
But none of this surfaced in Friday’s KIRO radio reports. Why not?
Judge Catherine Shaffer ruled from the bench that the gun ban, adopted under former Mayor Greg Nickels, violates Washington’s law, which placed sole authority for regulating firearms in the hands of the State Legislature. That law was adopted in 1983 and amended in 1985, and has served as a model for similar laws across the country.--SAF press release
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