Canned Response? White House, Seattle Students Blame Guns, Not Suspects

UPDATED: The reaction to tragic shootings—one at the University of Virginia and the other at Seattle’s Ingraham High School—has been predictable, according to Second Amendment advocates, with the White House and Seattle school students demanding gun bans with no mention of holding the suspects responsible.

Following the shooting death of a 17-year-old student at the high school, police arrested a 14- and 15-year old. The older teen had a Glock pistol in his backpack believed to have been used in the hallway shooting. According to court documents obtained by Liberty Park Press, the pistol had been reported missing 11 days earlier and was posted with the National Crime Information Center as a “lost gun” by the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office on Oct. 28.

Seattle students put forth two demands:

• Mental health counselors in every school that represent the diverse backgrounds of students, at least 1 per every 200 students
• Demand Governor (Jay) Inslee call a special session in Olympia to ban all semi automatic (sic) weapons

In Washington, D.C., the White House issued a statement in reaction to the triple slaying of three student athletes at the University of Virginia. An arrest has already been made in that case, which reportedly involved a handgun.

Yet, in a statement released by White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, the Biden administration said “We need to enact an assault weapons ban to get weapons of war off America’s streets.” It does not appear this crime involved any kind of so-called “assault weapon.”

The White House statement mentions nothing about prosecuting the man suspected of the killings.

Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, took the president to task for trying to “exploit” the tragedy in an attempt to push his gun ban agenda.

“This horrible crime had absolutely nothing to do with so-called ‘assault weapons,’ and the White House knows it,” Gottlieb said. “The statement, which the president had to have approved, amounts to a crass exploitation of a tragedy in a deplorable effort to advance Joe Biden’s gun ban agenda. He has fully embraced the despicable tactic of never letting a crisis go to waste, no matter how awful the situation.”

As in the case of the UVA shootings, the Seattle Student Union has not called for swift justice in the high school murder. The King County, Washington prosecutor’s office has filed a first-degree murder charge against the 14-year-old suspected killer, plus a first-degree assault charge and a charge of unlawful possession of a firearm. The 15-year-old is charged with unlawful firearm possession and felony rendering criminal assistance.

According to charging documents against the juveniles, the recovered pistol, chambered in .357 (SIG) was apparently empty. Eight spent shell casings were recovered at the crime scene.

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell used the high school murder to resurrect his demand for repeal of Washington State’s firearm preemption statute, which prevents city and county governments from creating their own patchwork of local gun control ordinances. Preemption laws have been adopted by more than 40 states over the past three decades because they provide uniformity to each state’s gun laws.

Meanwhile, Virginia authorities have charged Christopher Darnell Jones, Jr. with three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of using a handgun in the commission of a felony, according to Fox News. Two other students were wounded in the incident, and hospitalized.