This Seattle Times article is ripe with lies and distortions. Osama Bin Laden can not walk into a gun show and buy a gun no questions asked. WAC requires a background check for all of it's members before they are allowed to purchase or sell guns.



Washington is the only West Coast state that hasn't closed this loophole, making our state a vulnerable target for those seeking easy access to firearms. Our state's former U.S. attorney, Kate Pflaumer, eerily noted last December that "Osama Bin Laden could walk into a gun show in Washington state and purchase a semiautomatic easily changeable into a fully automatic assault rifle, no questions asked, no records run."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002910757_govguns05.html

Former governors call for tougher gun-safety laws
By Albert D. Rosellini, Mike Lowry and Gary Locke
Special to The Times
Every year in Washington state, almost 600 citizens die from gun violence and many more are injured. These figures include homicides, accidental shootings and suicides. The recent tragic shooting in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle brought home the fact that we live in a violent society, made worse by the prevalence of easy access to firearms.
Gun violence is everybody's problem. It is not confined to inner cities or only tied to drug trafficking. Gun violence occurs in the suburbs, in our malls, in our schools and in the historic neighborhoods of our largest city. It affects all races, all ages and all incomes.
The violent events of Saturday, March 25, bear a striking resemblance to the Columbine tragedy in Littleton, Colo., nearly seven years ago. The victims in the Capitol Hill shooting included two school girls, 14 and 15. Like the tragedy in Columbine, the perpetrator was a loner without any prior convictions, whose arsenal included assault weapons and other high-powered firearms. Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske noted that the primary purpose for these weapons "is for hunting people, not animals."
As with the violence that swept through the quiet suburb of Littleton, the tragedy that took place just blocks from a church and one of Seattle's most popular parks demonstrates that gun violence can affect anyone, anywhere, at any time.
The Capitol Hill shooting and other recent incidents of gun violence in our community leave no doubt that Washington state's gun laws are inadequate and full of loopholes. These shootings expose just how easy it is for the wrong people to gain access to firearms in our state and make horror in our communities.
For far too long, state and federal leaders have tolerated weak gun-safety laws that put our communities at risk. In 2004, Congress allowed the federal assault-weapons ban to lapse and now anyone in Washington state can gain access to deadly, high-capacity weapons. Thirty-round magazines, like the ones found in Kyle Huff's possession, are now available because this important gun-safety law was allowed to expire.
Today, anyone can walk into one of the 60 gun shows held annually in Washington state and walk out with a handgun or assault rifle without a background check at the point of sale, without any record keeping, and without any waiting period. One gun-show promoter recently noted that to purchase a gun at a gun show, "the only paperwork you need is cash."
Washington is the only West Coast state that hasn't closed this loophole, making our state a vulnerable target for those seeking easy access to firearms. Our state's former U.S. attorney, Kate Pflaumer, eerily noted last December that "Osama Bin Laden could walk into a gun show in Washington state and purchase a semiautomatic easily changeable into a fully automatic assault rifle, no questions asked, no records run."
We can strengthen gun-safety laws in Washington state and at the same time protect the rights of law-abiding citizens to own firearms. We can limit the availability of highly lethal assault rifles while protecting the interests of sportsmen and hunters. It is long past time we moved beyond the rhetoric and away from entrenched and extreme positions that have held back sensible gun-safety measures in Washington state.
As former governors of Washington state, we urge you to let your elected leaders hear your voice and calls for tougher gun-safety measures. Together we can make our schools, neighborhoods, malls and other public places safe for our children and free from gun violence.
Albert D. Rosellini, Mike Lowry and Gary Locke served as governors of Washington from 1957 to 1965, 1993 to 1997, and 1997 to 2005, respectively.

I have a feeling OBL would bring his own and bring it over the border no questions asked.

Quoted: I have a feeling OBL would bring his own and bring it over the border no questions asked.

Why go that far, he could outfit his own personal RV in a cargo container and just drive out the gates at pier 18.

I'm still waiting for the icecream truck to come by.

I'll begin to give some creedence to the anti-gunners and anti-gun laws when Mike Bloomberg does away with his body guards, when Rosy O'Donnell goes to Compton late some Saturday night to pass out gun locks, when Dianne Feinstein publicly tears up her San Francisco issued pistol permit and smashs up her .38. Or even more likely when Hillary joins Rosy at the Compton event.

Gil, WHERE'S YOUR GUN!!

Fuckin' wankers.

Thank  you.

<Rant mode off>

Quoted: Quoted: I have a feeling OBL would bring his own and bring it over the border no questions asked. Why go that far, he could outfit his own personal RV in a cargo container and just drive out the gates at pier 18.

His Chinese pit crew is already here, LOL

probly I shouldnt say this but i'm pretty sure that "others" in this case, added together, probably amount to less then half the sales during wac shows each year

Quoted: probly I shouldnt say this but i'm pretty sure that "others" in this case, added together, probably amount to less then half the sales during wac shows each year

More like half of the sales of one day Monroe Wac show,   sad, very sad but the gun culture is dying.

Quoted: I'll begin to give some creedence to the anti-gunners and anti-gun laws when Mike Bloomberg does away with his body guards, when Rosy O'Donnell goes to Compton late some Saturday night to pass out gun locks, when Dianne Feinstein publicly tears up her San Francisco issued pistol permit and smashs up her .38. Or even more likely when Hillary joins Rosy at the Compton event. Gil, WHERE'S YOUR GUN!! Fuckin' wankers. Thank  you. <Rant mode off>

Eloquent, sir, quite eloquent.

Sorry, I'd just got through watching the Penn & Teller Gun Control piece. I was a tad upset at the moment.

Out comes the old saying again..When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns. 1.2 million guns (that figure maybe for rifles only - not sure)  sold in the U.S. each year, Don't know how many are built, we're not dying just yet. It's the loud mouth few media/policians that make it seem like we're dying. (sales figures taken from "High Power Rifle Accuracy")

Quoted:This Seattle Times article is ripe with lies and distortions. Osama Bin Laden can not walk into a gun show and buy a gun no questions asked. WAC requires a background check for all of it's members before they are allowed to purchase or sell guns.

WAC is not the only group doing gun shows in the state.
Other gun show promoters do NOT restrict gun sales to members-only, other pro-gun organizations do not rn background checks on prospective members.

Washington is the only West Coast state that hasn't closed this loophole, making our state a vulnerable target for those seeking easy access to firearms. Our state's former U.S. attorney, Kate Pflaumer, eerily noted last December that "Osama Bin Laden could walk into a gun show in Washington state and purchase a semiautomatic easily changeable into a fully automatic assault rifle, no questions asked, no records run."

Oy, vey.
Did these clowns leave ANY standard hoplophobe shibboleths unused?  (I guess they didn't say "For the children"...)

More like half of the sales of one day Monroe Wac show, sad, very sad but the gun culture is dying.

I disagree.  If that was the case, the NRA would be wasting away, not as huge as it has been in recent years.  And carry law reform would never have happened.

Let's face it, a lot of good people have an instinct for self defense and towards a skill with weapons...

Quoted: Washington is the only West Coast state that hasn't closed this loophole, making our state a vulnerable target for those seeking easy access to firearms. Our state's former U.S. attorney, Kate Pflaumer, eerily noted last December that "Osama Bin Laden could walk into a gun show in Washington state and purchase a semiautomatic easily changeable into a fully automatic assault rifle, no questions asked, no records run." Oy, vey. Did these clowns leave ANY standard hoplophobe shibboleths unused?  (I guess they didn't say "For the children"...)

LOL, actually, they did... they even threw in a little something about malls.

"Together we can make our schools, neighborhoods, malls and other public places safe for our children and free from gun violence."

I had to look up hoplophobe... and shibboleth, now I'm smarter.

WAC requires a background check for all of it's members before they are allowed to purchase or sell guns.

As much as I hate to point this out to you coasties, the WAC isn't the only organization holding shows. There's L&C, and several others- You buy a rifle from a private individual at  the show, who's not an FFL- no NICs is required. Same as buying it from an ad in the Nifty Nikkel or whatever, but the bottom line is "So fucking what if I do?"

Last I checked there was a Constitutional Amendmant that said I have the RIGHT to Bear Arms, and as long as I am conforming to all of the other laws, who's business is it where or from whom I buy?


Don't get wrapped around the axel by using the WAC as your example, that's a very unique circumstance.

Quoted: Same as buying it from an ad in the Nifty Nikkel or whatever, but the bottom line is "So fucking what if I do?" Last I checked there was a Constitutional Amendmant that said I have the RIGHT to Bear Arms, and as long as I am conforming to all of the other laws, who's business is it where or from whom I buy?

That is exactly the point. As long as it's a private sale, it's nobody's business, whether it's at a gunshow or a garage sale.

The WAC attempts to screen prospective buyers and sellers and control the legal nature of what is bought and sold at the shows.

The only reason the government might have for requiring checks on every purchase is to illegally register all firearms.

It should be more than enough to screen buyers and sellers, then let people buy what they wish, as long as it's legal. They don't need to know the serial number of every gun you own.

As much as it would make life easier for LEOs to monitor all our purchases and question our motives, the idea is to NOT have somebody looking over your shoulder every time you take a step. It's called FREEDOM.

Quoted: Quoted: Same as buying it from an ad in the Nifty Nikkel or whatever, but the bottom line is "So fucking what if I do?" Last I checked there was a Constitutional Amendmant that said I have the RIGHT to Bear Arms, and as long as I am conforming to all of the other laws, who's business is it where or from whom I buy? That is exactly the point. As long as it's a private sale, it's nobody's business, whether it's at a gunshow or a garage sale. The WAC attempts to screen prospective buyers and sellers and control the legal nature of what is bought and sold at the shows. The only reason the government might have for requiring checks on every purchase is to illegally register all firearms. It should be more than enough to screen buyers and sellers, then let people buy what they wish, as long as it's legal. They don't need to know the serial number of every gun you own. As much as it would make life easier for LEOs to monitor all our purchases and question our motives, the idea is to NOT have somebody looking over your shoulder every time you take a step. It's called FREEDOM.

Thanks for providing amplification to my secondary, (but not by a longshot), less important, point.


(ETA-, Just for Phil- TOSTPAMS=WAC, or WWAC)

Gottleib and Waldron reply:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002915780_guns07.html
Friday, April 7, 2006 - 12:00 AM

Don't let gun-control extremists exploit Capitol Hill tragedy

By Alan Gottlieb and Joe Waldron
Special to The Times

The recent tragedy on Seattle's Capitol Hill may never be adequately explained, but it has not taken long for proponents of increasingly erosive gun-control schemes to exploit the crime.

Even before the bodies had been removed from the crime scene, Washington CeaseFire — an extremist group in our view, whose ghoulishly quick reaction was tantamount to dancing in the blood of Kyle Huff's victims — issued a press release calling for tougher gun laws.

And now three former Washington governors, following CeaseFire's script, are complaining that our gun laws are full of alleged "loopholes" that allowed this crime to happen ["Former governors call for tougher gun-safety laws," Times op-ed, April 5]. But consider some facts.

None of Huff's firearms was purchased in Washington state. Huff brought his firearms from Montana, where they were legally purchased under that state's laws. No Washington state law would have made any difference.

While the three ex-governors and CeaseFire have used this tragedy to rail against a mythical "gun show loophole," none of Huff's firearms was purchased at a gun show. A Justice Department survey of convicted felons has shown that fewer than 1 percent of them obtained their guns at gun shows. The overwhelming majority of criminals get their firearms from other sources.

A semi-automatic Bushmaster sport-utility rifle found in Huff's pickup with several loaded magazines was not used in the crime. The presence of that firearm in the truck is irrelevant, as were the guns confiscated from his apartment.

Nothing in Huff's background when he purchased his guns remotely suggests he was capable of this carnage. Would former Govs. Al Rosellini, Mike Lowry and Gary Locke — and CeaseFire Executive Director Natalie Reber — expect the public to believe that we can legislate mind reading so that firearms retailers would look into someone's eyes and determine whether, four or five years in the future, that person might commit a crime with the gun he is buying?

Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske quickly demonized Huff's "pistol grip" shotgun, falsely claiming that it was only for "hunting people." Kerlikowske's expertise about guns appears limited to leaving his loaded pistol in a car where it was stolen, else he would know that pistol-grip shotguns are pretty common in bear country, and that they are utility tools for fish and game biologists, fishing and hunting guides, bush pilots and others who have harmed nobody.

The amount of ammunition Huff had is probably irrelevant. The Seattle Times reported that Huff came from a region where "it's routine to carry a gun or guns in a pickup, and some may carry hundreds of rounds of ammunition for target practice."

A Montana detective, Lt. Roger Bergstrom, dismissed the suggestion by Seattle cops that Huff's intentions were clear, due to the rifle and ammunition found in his vehicle. Bergstrom noted, "The fact that [Huff] had all those weapons in the truck does not necessarily lead me to believe it was premeditated."

Yet, CeaseFire's Reber has intimated that the Capitol Hill slayings could have been prevented by limiting the number of firearms or the amount of ammunition someone can have, and that is preposterous.

Even Peter Hamm, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, admitted to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that it might be difficult to find "a systematic fix" that would prevent such crimes.

Laws against guns on school campuses have not prevented a single school shooting. Laws against murder have not stopped murders. Laws restricting the firearm rights of law-abiding citizens have penalized the wrong people, while criminals intent on breaking the law and harming others keep doing it.

Stop trying to hoodwink the public into believing that one more restriction on law-abiding gun owners is going to stop the Kyle Huffs of the world, because it isn't, and the gun-control extremists know it.

Alan Gottlieb is the founder of the Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org); Joe Waldron is executive director of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (www.ccrkba.org) in Bellevue.

Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company

Heres to a common sense article of TRUTH, hats off to Gottlieb and Waldron.

federal law dosent require private sales to register. if some one dosent like the fact that its not required in wash, you have the freedom to move. besides theres alot of people you can buy privatly from. there are very few rifles that are easy to conver to fully auto. i take offense to the word assult rifle, there are no such rifles. there are military copys.

Excellent article by Alan Gottlieb and Joe Waldron.  Unfortunately radicals only listen to what they want and everything is an excuse to push their agenda and, of course, crooks (like the former governors, etc.) to push their own taking advantage of soccer-moms and disney-pas ignorance.  

It's also interesting to note that the extremism of those folks go beyond the rational when they accuse firearms of even being responsible for "suicides".  

Every year in Washington state, almost 600 citizens die from gun violence and many more are injured. These figures include homicides, accidental shootings and suicides.

The sad part is that there are people who listen to this trash.

Quoted: <snip> The violent events of Saturday, March 25, bear a striking resemblance to the Columbine tragedy in Littleton, Colo., nearly seven years ago. Like the tragedy in ColumbineThe victims in the Capitol Hill shooting included two school girls, 14 and 15. , the perpetrator was a loner without any prior convictions, whose arsenal included assault weapons and other high-powered firearms. Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske noted that the primary purpose for these weapons "is for hunting people, not animals." <snip> .

Hmmm, maybe if some parents were doing their f*cking JOB a 14 and 15 year old would not have been at a 3 AM afterparty.  Leave it to the lib-tards to completely ignore this little fact.

Trey

Quoted:maybe if some parents were doing their f*cking JOB a 14 and 15 year old would not have been at a 3 AM afterparty.  Leave it to the lib-tards to completely ignore this little fact.Trey

They're not ignoring the fact, bro.  You're so narrow minded...
Don't you know that the parents have a right duty to let their children excerise their rights, by staying out late at all-night parties where drugs and sex are rampant?
Wouldn't want to stunt the little darlings' development, after all...