Posted on 05/09/2006 9:29:18 AM PDT by neverdem
GUEST COLUMNIST
With Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels essentially shilling for the small but vocal Washington CeaseFire, Evergreen State anti-gunners have opened a new gun control campaign that typically offers nothing but wants a lot.
Exploiting the Capitol Hill murders and other recent Seattle incidents, the gun control lobby has launched a massive assault on this state's gun owners, but with the same old goals that are irrelevant to current problems.
Despite the fact that the Capitol Hill gunman Kyle Huff did not use the .223-caliber utility rifle found in his truck after the killings, Nickels and CeaseFire want a statewide ban on so-called assault weapons. Despite the fact that none of the shootings was preventable, they want mandatory trigger locks. Huff legally purchased his firearms and brought them from another state, yet Nickels wants to close a mythical gun show loophole in Washington.
Gun prohibitionists bring nothing to the table in exchange for freedoms they want gun owners to surrender. Nickels never even came to the table and has never met with the firearms community. He simply announced what he and CeaseFire want the Legislature to take away from gun owners.
CeaseFire President Ralph Fascitelli recently promised to put in writing that law-abiding citizens have a right to own handguns and "non-military hunting rifles" provided gun owners essentially agree to his group's wish list. That's not an olive branch, it's a noxious weed.
Besides, where did he get the arrogant notion that CeaseFire grants rights?
Fascitelli attempted to marginalize the National Rifle Association as "a body mostly of white men who live outside urban centers." Unlike CeaseFire, the NRA's president is a woman, Tucson, Ariz., attorney Sandra Froman; very urban, very sophisticated. Today's NRA is a model of diversity with its own women's magazine, women's programs and members from all walks of life and ethnic backgrounds.
CeaseFire talks about gun safety; thousands of NRA certified instructors teach it. How many certified instructors does CeaseFire have? NRA has about 90,000 members statewide. CeaseFire claims 3,600 members.
Meanwhile, Nickels, fresh from an anti-gun mayors' summit in New York, appears to have taken CeaseFire's agenda, put his name on it and is using their rhetoric.
They complain about "easy access to guns" and "lax gun laws," yet guns were far more accessible 50 and 75 years ago, when the laws were far less strict. Where was the urban violence then? Where were the school shootings? People carried guns in bars. There were school rifle teams. There were no background checks. What changed?
Violent crime is not the fault of law-abiding gun owners, who should be able to own whatever firearm they want. If they're not harming people or committing crimes, who cares what kind of guns they have?
The gun control lobby cares. If they can make it acceptable to ban one kind of gun today and restrict gun ownership, tomorrow they can try to ban other guns and demand further erosions of gun owners' rights. When the firearms community justifiably fights back, they'll be demonized as "unreasonable gun nuts."
CeaseFire admits that gun control laws could not have prevented the Capitol Hill shootings. Why do they think such laws will prevent future crimes?
Why do they want you to think so?
Dave Workman is author of "Washington State Gun Rights and Responsibilities" and senior editor at Gun Week (www.gunweek.com).
I applaud your efforts and am glad you converted a few. As I said for me, these are acquaintences not friends and the only one I broached the subject to of going to the range with me looked so terrified at the prospect I didnt pursue it further.
If the terrorist's shoot up a shopping mall, a school, or even a government office building, even if they brought the guns with them, expect the Gun Grabbers to at least try to exploit the situation to ban guns, as many as they can, with confiscation of as many as they can.
In my experience, a .22 rifle is the best weapon to introduce someone to firearms with.
I don't own a .22 rifle... but my .22 pistol IS the best of the choices I have, to start them out on. It doesn't hurt to shoot, it's easy to aim and fire accurately and isn't as loud. By the end of the day though, many want to fire the bigger guns again :~D
Yeah, and porcine creatures regularly become airborne by flapping their appendages. [grin]
The Seattle PI is even more /liberal/leftist/communist than the Seattle Times, and they are over there on the left side with the Swimmer and JF'nK. More than likely, Workman wrote a letter to the editor in response to their article touting Greg Nickels pandering gun-grabber plan. Like most far left liberal , yellow journalism rags, they're losing circulation and are barely able to stay afloat. So in order to appear "fair" and pander to anyone to the right of Marx or Stalin, they probably printed his letter under the "Guest Columnist" heading on the editorial page. They would never write a "news" article that had anything but gun-grabber/gun-control talking points, which is basically what the Greg Nickels article was.
But as one of you noted, the Guest Columnists easily put their regular columnists and editorial writers to shame, just by comparison. However, you don't actually think that a far leftist organization could even allow that into their consciousness, let alone do something about it. They are in their own liberal world and will "tolerate" with a bemused expression anyone who has any centrist or conservative views. They are continually dumbfounded by the amount of support that Tim Eyeman gets with his statewide initiatives that do things like require only $30 car tabs and puts a cap on tax increases, etc. They just don't have any clue. They live and work in that bastion of liberal/leftist socialism, Seattle, and rarely step foot outside their "comfort" zone.
So no, there are NO friends at the Seattle PI or Times, but there are conservatives in Seattle- they are just outnumbered by the unionists, queers, welfare queens and local/state govt. employees.
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