By Dave Workman
Prosecutor Dan Satterberg with Don Pierce of the Sheriffs and Police Chiefs Association. CCRKBA’s Gottlieb looks on.
Senior Editor
The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms reinforced its support for a bill in the Washington Legislature that would crack down on illegally-armed juvenile thugs and gang wannabes, with Chairman Alan Gottlieb testifying before a State Senate committee.
Remarkably, while the concept of Senate Bill 5376 had been supported by various entities including Washington Ceasefire, the state’s most vocal anti-gun organization, only CCRKBA showed up to testify in support of the measure, along with King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg and Don Pierce, representing the state Sheriffs and Police Chiefs organization.
The measure, which would require judges to put armed teens in detention for ten days on a first offense and for up to 15 weeks for a repeat offense, drew opposition from groups that argued the money would be better spent if allocated to their programs.
Gottlieb told TGM that it looked like a parade of people simply approaching the Senate panel with their hands out. The lineup included a representative from a youth group who urged the Senate Human Services and Corrections Committee to provide more money for her program, rather than focus on locking up gun-toting recidivist teens. There was also a representative from a Quaker group who urged more understanding for youth, and then told the committee about his own misadventures that included playing with a .22-caliber handgun with some friends, and joining another friend on an out-of-season pheasant “hunting” trek to Fall City, several miles east of Seattle.
A public defender also appeared in opposition, and claimed there were “underlying racial stereotypes” involved in the discussion of the bill by its proponents.
“Without a doubt,” said Elinor Cromwell with the Society of Counsel Representing Accused Persons, “the ones I see arrested and the ones I see get charged are youth of color.”
Gottlieb got behind the measure early because, as he told the committee, “we were assured that this common sense measure will not prevent juveniles and teens from lawfully using or possessing firearms for hunting, recreational shooting, competition or any other legitimate purpose.”
“We stressed to Dan at the outset that under no circumstances would we support a measure that might ensnare or entrap a teen who accidently leaves a shotgun in his car after a weekend of hunting, camping or shooting at the range, or who drives the family car only to discover someone else forgot to take a rifle out of the trunk,” Gottlieb said. “We were especially impressed that Satterberg’s concept has absolutely no bearing on the rights of legally-armed adults, including more than 396,000 law-abiding citizens who are legally licensed to carry concealed pistols, or the growing number of citizens who openly carry.”
The bill’s prime sponsor in the Senate is anti-gun Sen. Adam Kline, a Seattle Democrat who also testified. It was ironic that the bill’s primary opposition came from people representing Seattle-based organizations that might otherwise be among Kline’s strongest supporters.
