New Report ‘Crime in Washington 2021’ Damning Proof of Gun Control Failure

In the midst of a continuing pattern of rising crime in Washington State, a new report released by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC) does two things, one of them completely unintentional.

The report says there were 325 murders last year in the state, “an increase of 5.9 percent since 2020.” It is the highest number of murders recorded since WASPC began collecting data in 1980.

What the data also demonstrates is that restrictive gun control initiatives pushed through by a billionaire-backed gun prohibition lobbying group based in Seattle have failed to make communities safer, essentially putting the lie to any promises or predictions made by their proponents.

Translation: Gun control advocates misled Evergreen State voters. Their forecasts and arguments were wrong, just as Northwest gun rights leaders said they would be.

According to the Crime in Washington 2021 report, “In 2021, Violent Crimes showed an increase of 12.3% with 29,238 offenses reported; compared to 26,036 offenses reported in 2020. There were 325 murders in 2021; this is an increase of 5.9% compared to 307 murders in 2020.”

That’s even more homicides than the annual FBI Uniform Crime Report listed for 2020, the most recent year for which FBI data is available. The Crime Report is released in late September each year. For 2020, the FBI listed 298 homicides, of which 177 were committed with firearms. That was up from the 209 murders, including 141 involving guns, posted in the 2015 Crime Report.

The new WASPC report “compiles data from 232 state, county, municipal and tribal agencies,” according to KOMO News. It “is designed to give residents information on what is happening in their communities. It covers a wide variety of crime, an issue people living in Seattle say is getting out of hand.”

The report came as news from neighboring Oregon confirmed Initiative Petition 17, which seeks to ban so-called “large capacity magazines” and require Oregonians to get a permit before they can purchase a firearm, has qualified to appear on the November ballot.

New Ban Push

A new report from KING5, the Seattle Times, Washington State University’s Murrow College of Communications and the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public says 61 percent of survey respondents would support a ban on so-called “assault weapons.” However, because the Supreme Court granted certiorari to a challenge of the ban in Maryland—in a case brought by the Second Amendment Foundation, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and others—and then remanded the case back to the lower court for further consideration based on the June decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, such a ban could be held unconstitutional sometime during the next two years as the case is reconsidered.

According to KGW, the WA Poll was conducted by SurveyUSA among 825 participants, which seems a pitifully small number, considering the WASPC report says there are now 7,772,506 Washington residents.

“People living in western Washington were also more likely to support a ban,” KGW reported. “A total of 65% strongly or somewhat support the idea of an assault weapon ban. Meanwhile, 48% of people from eastern Washington opposed a ban, with 35% being strongly opposed.”

Further reinforcing the notion that Democrats have become the party of gun prohibition, the poll found, “Democrats largely supported the idea, with 75% saying they strongly support a ban and 16% saying they somewhat support it. Though there was some support for a ban from Republicans, more than 50% said they were opposed, with 44% being strongly opposed.”

There is no small irony here, because the National Shooting Sports Foundation just released a new estimate on the number of modern semi-auto sporting rifles (MSRs) now in private hands. According to NSSF, the number of MSRs now in circulation is 24,446,000, which is an increase of more than 4.5 million rifles since the organization last made an estimate in 2020.

Almost simultaneously, anti-gun Congressman Jerry Nadler (D-NY), chairing the House Judiciary Committee, made a startling admission during a hearing on H.R. 1808, the bill to ban so-called “assault weapons.” When Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) asked if the bill is designed to ban “weapons in common use,” Nadler unequivocally answered, “Yes, that is the point of the bill.”

 

The admission ignited a lively discussion on Twitter.

It was during this hearing that David Hogg, who became a poster boy for gun control after the 2018 high school shooting in Parkland, Fla., was ejected from the hearing room. According to Fox News, Hogg disrupted the hearing by accusing House members of inaction on gun control. As he was escorted out by security officers, Hogg reportedly declared, “You are perpetuating violence…stop these things now.”

The push to pass gun control legislation now may unintentionally signal fear from Democrats that they are likely to lose the majority on Capitol Hill in November, thus stopping efforts to place additional restrictions on gun owners, and derail Joe Biden’s gun control agenda.