Dear Seattle: Told You So. Signed, America’s Gun Owners

For all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: “CCRKBA Was Right Again.”

It’s been said that the four most hateful words in the English language are “I told you so.” Thing is, sometimes you just have to say them, especially if the thing you told them would have prevented a tragedy had they heeded your words. Now, innocent people are dead because your common-sense advice was ignored. You want to be respectful to the families of the victims, but glossing over the failures that led to them having become victims will only set the playing field up for more tragedies.

When a city passes “gun control” laws that only limit law-abiding citizens, that’s going to be a problem. When a city defunds and defangs its police force, that’s also going to be a problem. When the city’s leadership announces that they’re swapping law enforcement out for “community-based solutions,” that city is in for some problems. Seattle did all of these things, and now the city’s homicide rate has tripled since 2016.

You told them so. We told them so. And, of course, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms told them so. Here are the facts on Seattle’s tragic–and completely avoidable–murder problem.

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In the aftermath of a newspaper report that homicides in Seattle, Washington remain “far higher” than before the pandemic, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said the revelation further reinforces the argument that gun control policies in the city, and Washington state have been a “complete failure.”

The Seattle Times is reporting the city has recorded “50% more homicides in the first half of 2024 versus the same period in 2019.” Seattle set a record for murders in 2023. As of Aug. 1, the Times said Seattle had recorded 34 homicides, but that doesn’t include a slaying early on Aug. 13. In addition, the city has recorded 449 shootings, up from the 428 for the same period in 2023, the newspaper said.

“My compliments to the Seattle Times for essentially confirming what we’ve been saying for the past few years,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “We have maintained gun control in the state, and in Seattle, has been a complete failure. In 2015, the city adopted a special tax on the sale of guns and ammunition, arguing that the money would be used to help reduce so-called ‘gun violence.’ Instead, the number of homicides in the city has more than tripled, from 20 in 2016, the first year the tax was in effect, to 64 last year, according to Seattle Police data posted on their website.”

However, the Seattle Police number is in dispute. The Seattle Times reported 69 murders last year and the popular site Seattle Homicide—not connected with the police department—reported 73 murders in the city last year.

“In 2014, when Washington voters passed gun control Initiative 594, the state reported 172 homicides, according to the FBI Uniform Crime Report,” Gottlieb recalled. “In 2023, according to a new report from the Washington Association of Sheriff’s and Police Chiefs, the state logged 376 murders. You can play all the games with statistics you want, but that still amounts to more than double the number of murders since the state started passing increasingly stricter gun control laws.

“Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell and Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson should publicly acknowledge their gun control policies have failed miserably,” Gottlieb said. “These gun laws have only penalized law-abiding citizens, and emboldened violent criminals. They should be repealed, and the people responsible for these laws should publicly apologize.”