Washington State Capitol in Olympia. Activists will gather there Jan. 12.
(Dave Workman)
A New Year’s holiday weekend editorial in the Seattle Times signaled, perhaps unintentionally, the need for Evergreen State Second Amendment activists to be alert for possible bias as 2018 unfolds because the newspaper acknowledged that both the editorial board and news staff would like to see a headline this year announcing an “assault weapons ban.”
It’s not unusual for an editorial board to come up with such a desired headline sometime during the year ahead, but for a newsroom staff to offer such a suggestion might alarm gun owners and Second Amendment activists.
The revelation probably surprised no Northwest gun owner, however. The Seattle Times has historically backed gun control legislation.
Gun rights activists will gather on the Capitol Steps in Olympia on Friday, Jan. 12 starting at 9 a.m. to express opposition to proposed gun control legislation including a proposed ban on so-called “assault weapons” and a separate bill that would regulate semi-auto rifles like handguns, with minimum age ownership. Another bill would essentially undo the state’s 33-year-old preemption statute to allow Seattle and other cities to adopt their own gun control regulations.
Evergreen State gun owners complain that they are used to being treated like second-class citizens by the dominant media. They are likewise accustomed to having their constitutionally delineated right to keep and bear arms treated as though it should be a government-regulated privilege.
At year’s end, according to the state Department of Licensing, Washington had 590,749 active concealed pistol licenses. That was down slightly more than 600 from the Dec. 1 high of 591,366, but it still represents an increase of more than 19,270 CPLs for the year 2017. That is no small number in a state that is considered politically “blue.”
