By James England via concealednation.org
Despite cities like Seattle pushing for increased measures intended to raise the cost of gun ownership, the city of Spokane has another issue — too many concealed carry applicants. Normally, the Spokane County Public Safety Building is open from Tuesday to Friday, 8 am to 3:05 pm to process concealed carry applications but just yesterday, county officials were forced to turn away applicants as early as 12:30 pm due to the increased volume . . .
According to KHQ-6, there were 941 new concealed carry applications filed in Spokane last month. Yesterday, officials realized early on that their forensics division wouldn’t have time to complete applications for any more applicants and began having deputies advise citizens to return the next day.
Wow.
President Obama has recently issued several imperial mandates intended to increase the scrutiny placed upon law-abiding gun owners and gun vendors. Whether or not the sudden rush of new concealed carry applicants is related to those decrees remains to be seen. What is known is that — particularly in Washington state — there has been a concerted effort by the anti-gun movement to introduce restrictive legislation and use back door approaches to make gun ownership by law-abiding citizens more difficult.
Seattle, for instance, is instituting a new “gun violence tax” that would make firearm dealers pay a set amount for every firearm sold and another tax on ammunition. According to the Seattle City Council’s Budget Office, this new “gun violence tax” will raise between $300,000 and $500,000 a year. In reality, it’s forced local gun shops to relocate outside the city limits in a bid to avoid a punishing tax that would both increase overall costs to the customers and place an undue competitive burden on gun dealers.
Along the same lines, Virginia’s Attorney General recently moved to sever concealed carry reciprocity with a majority of other states. Just when you think the fight is over, folks, it seems to heat up more.
2015 saw the introduction of a lot of great legislation intended to expand gun rights and offer more law-abiding citizens the opportunity to own and carry a concealed handgun. Now the forces of civilian disarmament seem to be using back. The people of Spokane seem to have spoken: the right to keep and bear arms — including carrying a firearm — is an American right guaranteed to all law-abiding and eligible citizens under the Second Amendment.
Unfortunately, some those fine folks will have to return another day to wait in line for their chance.