Whether they realize it or not, Washington CeaseFire has made casting a ballot for King County executive pretty easy for gun owners who vote, and on Tuesday, a lot of them will.
CeaseFire’s endorsement of Dow Constantine amounts to a signal for gun owners to cast their ballot for Susan Hutchison, the outsider and former news anchor who has been vilified in recent weeks for her conservative politics.
While Hutchison has been talking about balancing the county’s budget, Constantine has tried more than once to highlight her alleged position on abortion. What’s that all about? In fairness, Constantine has also talked about how he will rescue the county from its budget crisis, which many argue he helped create as a member of the County Council.
CeaseFire has added its endorsement even though the organization knows that a county executive has no say on firearms regulation; that’s a state legislative issue. That is, of course, unless CeaseFire expects Constantine to be a Greg Nickels kind of guy, defying state statute to impose his own gun regulations until challenged in court.
Hutchison is supported by longtime gun rights advocate Alan Gottlieb of Bellevue, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation and chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Neither organization endorses candidates for public office.
CeaseFire President Ralph Fascitelli gushed in his august endorsement of Constantine that the liberal Democrat “has the experience and commitment to help reduce the approximately 150 yearly gun deaths in…King County.” Good luck with that, since a majority of those deaths are suicides. In unincorporated King County last year, there were about a dozen homicides. That’s fewer than in Seattle, which recorded 28 homicides. More people die in traffic accidents.
Don’t politicize Seattle officer’s slaying
Already, some people have been weighing in on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Reader forum about the slaying Saturday evening of SPD officer Timothy Q. Brenton in what can only be described as a cowardly ambush.
The Seattle Times has reported that, according to some sources, the killer used a rifle. How long before some opportunistic anti-gunner turns this into a launch pad for a gun ban rant remains to be seen. Likewise, this really isn’t the time for challenging Mayor Greg Nickels about whether the scene of the crime was posted with “No Guns” signs.
There is a killer loose who has no qualms about murdering a police officer. Some planning went into the attack, as the car in which the killer was riding apparently backed up immediately, turned around and fled to the rear. That suggests the killer or killers knew what to do to prevent their fleeing car from being recorded on the police car’s dash camera.
That kind of cold-blooded murderer needs to be off the street. Let's keep that in perspective and argue politics another time.
Tips about this case may be called in to (206) 233-5000 or to Crime Stoppers at (206) 343-2020.
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Comments
Sadly (or luckily, depending on viewpoint) I can't vote in choosing a King County Executive (I'm in Pierce County), but this endorsement would be a deciding factor in MY choice.
I've been legally carrying for decades, and those who don't like that are not MY choice to represent me.
I'm in total agreement with your comments concerning the death of one of SPD's finest. It's in very bad taste to politicize this event at all, much less immediately following the incident.
I just finished filling out my ballot and was looking for information regarding which way to go on this. Thank God that I voted for Susan Hutchison. For me, it was the endorsements that guided my vote. After I saw Constantine endorsed by the Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood, County Democrats etc I knew he wasn't for my values.
I also liked the fact that AG Rob McKenna, who understands the law in WA, endorsed Susan Hutchison.
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