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Image courtesy Wikipedia

Washington, D.C. has some of the nation’s most prohibitive gun laws. The District’s civilian disarmament code is so strict, and its application so Byzantine, that law-abiding citizens must wade through months of bureaucratic sewage and pay many hundreds of dollars before they’re allowed to exercise their right to bear arms in self-defense. Washington Times journalist Emily Miller has basically made a career of lampooning DC’s obscene gun regulations, but she’s actually one of the lucky few who made it through the administrative gauntlet. As a result, there are no civilian CCW permits and barely 40,000 legally-owned firearms among the entire District’s population of just over 630,000. And 103 people have been murdered so far in 2013, for a murder rate of 16.3 per 100,000. Meanwhile, out on the left coast . . .

Image: Wikipedia

Washington is a shall-issue CCW state with minimal licensing requirements and state firearms law preemption. Washington State’s population is 6.8 million, and the state has issued more than 400,000 CCW permits. Some of those permits were issued to non-Washingtonians, but that still leaves a ton of Evergreen State CCW holders.

Seattle is the biggest city in ‘the other’ Washington, and has a population of approximately 634,000. Of those 634,000 fewer than 25 were murdered, for a homicide rate of 3.79 per 100,000.

If these numbers didn’t already say everything you needed to know about the efficacy of gun control in reducing crime, here’s another bite to chew on: Washington State has added tens of thousands of CCW holders in the last twelve months and the Seattle homicide rate has remained basically unchanged, while Washington, D.C. has zero CCW holders and its homicide rate has edged even higher.

Even if you exclude the Washington Navy Yard shootings (themselves another artifact of foolish ‘gun-free zones’) the District already logged more murders by early December 2013 than it did in all of 2012. If you include the Navy Yard spree shooting, as I think it’s fair to do, the numbers are even more stark: 103 (and counting) in 2013, and only 88 in all of 2012.

The longer the District drags its feet implementing Heller, the more its residents will die. Their families can thank Mayor Vincent Gray and Chief Of Police Cathy Lanier. This disgusting duo has just announced changes to the District’s gun laws, forcing the few gun owners to re-register their firearms, in person, with the Metro Police.

If there’s any good news in this, it’s that Dick Heller is already taking them back to court. Yes, that Dick Heller.

And that Washington state has no state income tax, if you’re thinking of relocating.

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86 COMMENTS

  1. Here in downtown Seattle I literally went through the entire application process on my lunch hour and had my card less than thirty days later.

  2. Don’t move to Washington state if like a low cost of living though, lived near Seattle for two years, housing prices are obscene.

    • Blame that on the transplanted California maggots. No brains or sense of value but a fat checkbook from selling their hovels in Lalaland. 25 years ago Puget Sound was a great place to live.

      • As a Californian, I believe you owe a apology to the maggots… I offer no excuses for our lousy politics, but ever since I could vote, I never voted for any of the bums currently in office. What can I say, the scum rises to the top…

        • sagrebrushracer is right, you owe maggots an apology. They are not nearly as loathsome as the *typical* PRKer politician (or many of the voters for that matter). sagebrush doesn’t sound at all typical so this isn’t directed at him/her.

        • I’ll offer an apology to Sagebrushracer — he’s not a maggot, he’s real people.

          To the maggots who voted Kalifornistan into its present state and bring the stupidity with them when they “escape,” I offer my best one-finger salute. I’ve seen them systematically dismantle the culture of a couple of rural places I’ve lived in, and every Western state that has seen a major influx of these worms is the worse for it.

      • We’re starting to have the same transplant problem in Utah. Crime is rising in Salt Lake county, property is getting more expensive, the populous is getting whinier and louder, and driving in that area sucks far worse now unless you love being cut off repeatedly by Priuses with Cali plates. I give it a few years still before Salt Lake becomes the new Denver, fighting to repress the rights of the rest of the state, but that’s where we’re heading.

        • They’ve already ruined Park City, and once they’ve finished with Salt Lake County, Utah County will be next. Liberal entitlement is a blight.

        • That steams me to no end, refugees from failed states like California, Illinois and Michigan who come to Texas, not to start new in a sane and sensible place, but rather to have a fresh place to ruin with their tried and truly failed liberalism.

          I’d love it if we were getting the best and the brightest from these failed states, people fed up with liberalism and ready to contribute to our prosperity. However, it appears as though we’re getting the least and the slightest, people prone to milk our services and mulct the taxpayers.

        • I live in the northwest corner of Indiana and due to the “refugees” from Illinois we are the only Democrat party controlled county in the state. Thank God Indianapolis ignores our local politicians.

    • It really depends on what part of the state you’re in. Seattle and its environs are outrageously expensive, but the housing market is pretty reasonable everywhere else. Three-quarters of the state lies east of the Cascades, where there’s a lot more open space and virtually no urbanization (unless you count Spokane, which sometimes almost deserves its nickname of Spokompton).

      Washington state may not be perfect, but it’s among the more firearms-friendly states, and even Seattle (liberal though it is) hasn’t been wholly infected by progressivism, so it’s mostly a live-and-let-live kind of place. If you’re looking to escape one of the more oppressive states, you could certainly do a lot worse than WA.

      • Spokane’s a great place to live. I grew up in and around it, spent 11 years in CA, and then moved back to the general area of Spokane (E WA / N’Idaho) like 18 months ago. I have been enjoying living in the relatively free U.S. of A. once again, and the lack of a State income tax was like an immediate 10% raise when I moved my same job up here. Idaho is more of a gun paradise, though. SBR’s and some other NFA goodies still aren’t allowed in WA. BUT… upon moving back I had a CPL in my hands in about 30 days and a suppressor in my safe in about 10 months. The can was my present to myself for leaving CA 😉

        • A lot of good things to be said about Spokane. Only in a state as peaceful as Washington would it get that nickname; a Compton clone it is not.

        • I had car trouble in Spokane a few years ago. The repair shop that worked on it did an excellent job and had me back on the road the same day. I replaced all four tires while I was in town. The tire dealer gave me a good price and did the work on the spot. They’re the ones who referred me to the great service center. Those folks were honest, hardworking and caring. Spokane tops my list of best towns to get stranded in.

      • I found that even a lot of the liberals were gun nuts. A couple of the most hipster lefty dudes I worked with in downtown Seattle also made time on weekends to shoot their ARs. There’s also a bit of a movement in the gay community up there to carry firearms for defense. As a right-wing boy raised in Utah and moving into Seattle from Tennessee, I was glad to have some common ground on this issue, at least.

  3. As is often ignored in comparisons like these, open carry is legal without a permit in Washington, adding to the weakness of DC’s position on guns. Not that the DC council arrived at their conclusions honestly.

    • Yes, TECHNICALLY open carry is legal in Washington state. In the more rural areas I expect you will never have an issue with this, although if you’re in the woods a hunting license in season would be a good choice. As for the more urban areas of Spokane, Yakima, Olympia, Seattle/Tacoma, not so much.

      Even though you are not in violation of the open carry law in those cities you will very likely be in early and/or frequent contact with LEOs who will make every effort to dissuade you from your open carry inclinations. Their usual tactic is to find some other pretense to place you under arrest and confiscate your weapon.

      While not every police officer in those municipalities is of this mindset you take your chances on who will make contact. They object to this open carry business and they will generally speaking find some way to convince you that it is not a good life plan, even though it is legal.

      As for any other reasons to move here, both state senators are Liberals, most Congresscritters are Liberal and the Governor is Liberal. I could not tell you the last time the state went Republican in a presidential race. It’s an okay place to live, but it AIN”T paradise.

      • I have to agree with Cliff H.’s note of caution here. I successfully defended an open carry advocate several years ago, and it was a monstrous pain in the ass. Open carry in rural areas is probably safe, but open carry around Seattle or Vancouver is asking for trouble from ill-informed LEOs.

      • Actually, the fact that both senators are liberal and the governor is liberal is a great reason for gun owners to move here. Some of those races have been extremely close. In one case it was less than 300 votes. If gun owners moved here to take advantage of the pretty good gun laws, over time they would get even better.

      • Seattle PD is confirmed for giving people who OC a hard time, but I’ve talked to cops in Federal Way and they are up to speed on what’s legal and what isn’t. Can’t speak RE the other jurisdictions.

      • So far ive open carried all over the state including in seattle everett olympia and tacoma. NO ISSUES! A lot of the reason people get hasseled is because of they way they act,walk,dress. It sucks but its reality. I cant count the amount of morons that ive seen carrying but I take a serious amount of time to train and educate.

  4. Just imagine the shift in political power nationwide that would occur if the people who own guns and want to be able to use them if needed would all move to a state that allowed them to. California, Illiniose, New York and so many other New England states losing 15%-20% of their populations, and probably more than that of their tax revenue, suddenly redistributed to more freedom-minded states. Imagine California NOT having 55 electorial votes, all of which are permanently dyed blue. If not that, just the message it will send to politicians on both sides. “Treat us right, or we’ll leave you high and dry”.

    Now if only we could convince people to better their lives instead of burying their heads in the sand.

    • I suspect only 53 of their electoral votes are permanently blue. 😉

      As or your other point, what would happen if hundreds of thousands of pro-gun folks moved INTO those states?

  5. And with this information, te city of Seattle has been successfully sewed several times under the states preemption law for trying to go the way of Washington DC as far as firearm rights go. Also for trying to prevent people from having any kind of firearm in parks and so forth. I just have to say thank you to those who put the preemption law in place here in Washington State.

  6. Sorry, but this is not a fair comparison.

    From Wikipedia: Washington D.C. demographics – African American 50.7%, White 38.5%, Hispanic 9.1%, Asian 3.5%, Other 4.1%. Median household income for D.C. = $58,526. Seattle Demographics – White 66.3%, Asian 13.8%, African American 7.9%, Hispanic 6.6%, Other 8.7%. Median household income for Seattle = $62,195.

    When a person in this country dies from a gunshot wound, it’s probably because of one of two reasons: suicide (which is really independent of means, but hey, guns work), or (drug) gang violence. As far as I know, drug gangs are (for the most part) populated by marginalized socio-economic groups. Does this mean we shouldn’t be able to protect ourselves from said marginalized socio-economic groups? No. It just means I call bulls**t on this comparison.

    • In D.C., apparently not a place you live, African-Americans, black people, are not a marginalized socio-economic group, but rather an empowered minority, with good access to jobs if possessed of moderate skills. D.C. isn’t violent because there are more black folks. It is violent because the city lacks a standard of morality, and does not accept that violent punks should be shot by those they attack. In other words, in D.C. the robbers and drug dealers virtually know they have soft targets all around them. I’ve seen it first hand. The arrogance of criminals in D.C. is remarkable.

      • Once again, from good ‘ole Wikipedia: Median U.S. household income by race

        1.Asian American : $68,089
        2.Pacific Islands American : $ 58,859
        3.White American : $ 54,857
        4.Total Population : $ 51,914
        5.Native American : $ 38,806
        6.African American : $ 35,341

        I am not implying, by any stretch of the imagination, a predilection towards crime based on race. Based on affluence? You betcha.

        • You are half right here. Median income is only half the story (no pun intended).

          You have to look at income inequality or income distribution. A 6% difference in median income hides the fact that the poor in some groups are really poor. and the high-income are very high. To give an example: A population where one person makes 105k and another makes 15k has the same median income as a population where one person makes 65k and the other makes 55k. In the former population, 50% will stoop to crime, in the latter 0%.

          In other words, you really have to look at the % below poverty across groups.

          The income distribution is driven mostly by educational outcomes… which are very unequal.

        • Both the national median household income you cite for african-americans, and the DC figures you’ll find at the site below, do not include the value of benefits received. In D.C. itself the total minority household income inclusive of benefits is over the US median family income of 57,000. When I worked as a civil servant in DC in the early 80’s, we hired non-African-Americans only with college degrees and the highest PACE scores. We actively recruited minorities for professional series positions (budget, admin) who possessed only a high-school diploma and some secretarial experience.

          The DC african-american household income and education level are heavily impacted by the emmigration of DC AA’s to Prince Georges County, MD. Poverty is not, today, the problem in DC. Culture is the problem. Poverty is certainly a problem for African-Americans in the rural south and coastal non-DC ghettos. We can, of course, agree to disagree.

          http://www.city-data.com/income/income-Washington-District-of-Columbia.html

        • “The DC African-american household income and education level are heavily impacted by the emigration of DC AA’s to Prince Georges County, MD. Poverty is not, today, the problem in DC. Culture is the problem.”

          NAILED IT! I’ve watched the housing market explode in PG due to the Eastward emigration of African-American Professional refugees from the District. Closer in, the PG neighborhoods bordering DC (especially the apartment blocs) are a veritable gang- and drug-related shooting gallery at night. MOCO is somewhat similar, but not as bad due to the cost of living and real estate there. Both are Democratic Machine ™ strongholds.

          BTW, Wikipedia is NOT an authoritative source, as the content is subject to editing by essentially anyone for any reason. Use Census Bureau for your stats, Scott.

    • If your position is that a 6% difference in income can explain a 400% difference in homicide rates, I look forward to that debate. I submit that Washington State’s recent history of frequent (usually fatal) defensive gun uses is a strong deterrent to stranger-on-stranger assaults and robberies.

      • Is 6% difference in median household income a game changer between haves and have-nots. I don’t know, but I wouldn’t turn down a 6% increase in my salary. However, if it’s your position that Washington D.C. experienced 103 “stranger on stranger” homicides (minus the number of people killed in the Navy yard shooting), none of which were gang related, then I’d like to know where you got the specifics on each of those homicides.

        As to whether or not shall issue carry laws have the potential to reduce robberies and assaults, I have no doubt. But that’s not what the original post was about. Your original post was about comparing two cities based on two things: total population and concealed carry. At it’s core, you made the same mistake the anti gun rights crowd makes when they compare the U.S. to another country.

        • I was thinking that maybe income inequality would illustrate your point better than median income, so I was able to find the Gini coefficients for both Seattle and Washington DC. They were 0.435 and 0.439, respectively. Apparently the two cities are as similar in income inequality as they are in median income.

        • Income inequality is more important that median income. The gini coefficient does not mean much intuitively to me, the % below poverty is really the most intuitive #. In D.C. especially, income inequality is pretty stark. You have the ivy league grads, and the resident dropouts.

      • Even income is a blunt tool for comparison, if one is making the case that material deprivation drives crime. You have to look at the totality of consumption in so-called lower income areas, which must include welfare benefits such as subsidized housing and healthcare, as well as direct cash payments and refundable tax credits.

        It’s a well dressed lower incomer, indeed, who sports an Obama smartphone. After incorporating the value of these benefits, we find that many of the “poor” are doing quite well and the poverty excuse for their criminal savagery quickly collapses.

    • If you are trying to make a connection between income and murder rate you have failed horribly. The overall US median income is 51K. So if that were tied to murder rate then you would expect DC to have a below average murder rate, not one of the highest in the country.

      Also Wiki needs to update their numbers, if you check the official 2012 US census data the median income in DC is 66K, not 58K.

      http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acsbr12-02.pdf

  7. Washington, D.C. is another Manhattan. Both are filled, in the better areas, with very prosperous and self-important people who imagine themselves high-value targets of the rabble. The people, in both cities, work and live in highly-policed areas with a large number of private security workers. These people don’t want guns in the hands of anyone they don’t control directly. Invariably, if they drive home to houses in NVA or the Maryland suburbs, then they have guns to protect themselves. San Francisco reveals a similar picture.

    Enclaves of the rich or politically powerful take on a mindset of elites-feeling-threatened, without a moment’s realization that the grandfather who gets hassled on the way to mass transit is much more at risk of a beating or worse. I want smaller government, but I propose a new agency whose job is to prevent elites from insulating themselves at the direct and indirect expense of Everyman’s rights. We The People could demand a change in mindset, and forgo the new agency. Will we do it?

  8. D.C. is a completely different animal from any other city and you have to live or work there for a while to appreciate it. First, you are never more than maybe 100 yds from a target of some fringe group. Consulates, defense, judges, congresscritters, you name it. Heck even Fannie Mae after the housing crisis right there on Wisconsin Ave. Find me a judge or politician in that city and I’ll show you someone who gets death threats and who probably is not inclined to let the little people carry guns within a 300 yd radius of where that judge or politician works. If they passed a law that said you could carry guns, so long as it was not within 300 yards of a school, federal building, consulate, or other “sensitive” facility, it would rule out most of D.C. I am pretty sure the Heller 5 said no guns in sensitive areas. That would probably include the SCOTUS building, where you don’t even have the right to protest on the stairs – and by extension most other buildings. And, in D.C. you have almost daily marches though somewhere to [save, free, repeal, enact] something. No marches with guns.

    What you have in D.C. is a bunch of spoiled but extremely unpopular congress critters and federal workers (and their families) who are just not going to want to go to work worrying that the angry little people writing nasty letters are carrying guns. If they could wall off the entire city and put up jersey barriers and metal detectors they would do that. A judge who authorizes it will likely be ostracized. Do you know how many death threats I get a year, we cannot just allow guns.
    Fine, they’ll say, guns but not within 500 yards of a sensitive facility. And whatever # they come up with, Mr Chief Justice and the rest of the Heller 5 will stamp it, no guns in sensitive areas. We are long past the days when the political class were part-timers drawn from the ranks of farmers and ordinary citizens who could take care of themselves.

    I hope I am wrong, but I’ll be able to legally carry an AR-15 strapped to my back through times square giving the NYPD the double bird before people will be permitted to carry in D.C. without a security clearance.

  9. Let’s add another wrinkle. D.C. does not allow for the carrying of weapons outside the home. There is no CCW law, and open carry is not permitted if you are lucky enough to navigate the dense web intended to dissuade you from ever owning a firearm. This law was challenged four years ago (2009 if memory serves), another Gura case. Plaintiffs filed a motion for summary judgment, which the judge heard but sat on so long the 2d Circuit finally removed him from the case and reassigned it to a senior (retired) judge, who should be somewhat less busy than a regular trial judge. That replacement judge decided he needed up to date briefing and new oral argument00which was held 18 months ago. The resolution of that motion is still pending. Gura file a petition for writ of mandate with the Circuit Court to try to get the judge off the dime–but that writ was rejected (without prejudice) a few days ago, the 2d DCA ruling that the 18 month delay has not been sufficiently egregious to warrant it’s ordering the trial court to act. So he matter sits–and it would seem that there is and will continue to be every effort to delay the resolution because it is just too damn difficult for the court to find a way to rule that a denial of a right to bear arms is (a) not an infringement of the second amendment, or (b) that the City has sufficiently established that its total ban is a reasonable restriction of the right under intermediate scrutiny.

  10. I enjoy life here in WA state… Seattle proper has obnoxious housing prices, but anywhere 30-45 mins in any direction there’s plenty of reasonable options. Beautiful ocean, great mountains… and plenty of great food!

    Finally got my CPL last year and process was completely painless… after filling out the paperwork, I just had a quick appointment to get fingerprinted and then wait a couple of weeks in the mail… Bam! CPL acquired.

    • LOL, the nearest ocean to Seattle is way the heck west. That is Puget Sound you are seeing ….. It’s a looong all day trip in a sailboat to the ocean.

      I have had a WA concealed carry permit since 1983, and I’ve lived here continuously for 33 years. It is a good state for firearms owners, but not a great one. They just recently fixed that moronic law that said you can own a suppressor, but not use it in any way.

      For a great firearms state you need to shift east into Idaho. Google “Boomershoot”.

      John Davies
      Spokane WA USA

  11. People, you really have to start looking at what goes on in the real world.

    Our school text books, television, and movies give us the warm and fuzzy notion that our federal, state, and local governments benevolently represent the people and always come in to save the day. While this may actually happen once in a while, it is the exception, not the rule.

    Government representatives and agents do whatever they damn well please, and that usually means what is good for them, not what is good for us. Nothing, let me repeat that, NOTHING magically changes the human nature of a person who becomes a government representative or agent. If they were scumbags before they started taking a government paycheck, they will continue to be scumbags on the government payroll.

    Stop making excuses for government — especially the excuse that government representatives and agents have good intentions but are misguided at times. They know full well what they are doing. Washington D.C. has and will continue to do everything in its power to disarm the citizens.

  12. People, you really have to start looking at what goes on in the real world.

    Our school text books, television, and movies give us the warm and fuzzy notion that our federal, state, and local governments benevolently represent the people and always come in to save the day. While this may actually happen once in a while, it is the exception, not the rule.

    Government representatives and agents do whatever they damn well please, and that usually means what is good for them, not what is good for us. Nothing, let me repeat that, NOTHING magically changes the human nature of a person who becomes a government representative or agent. If they were scumbags before they started taking a government paycheck, they will continue to be scumbags on the government payroll.

    Stop making excuses for government — especially the excuse that government representatives and agents have good intentions but are misguided at times. They know full well what they are doing. Washington D.C. has and will continue to do everything in its power to disarm the citizens.

  13. People, you really have to start looking at what goes on in the real world.

    Our school text books, television, and movies give us the warm and fuzzy notion that our federal, state, and local governments benevolently represent the people and always come in to save the day. While this may actually happen once in a while, it is the exception, not the rule.

    Government representatives and agents do whatever they damn well please, and that usually means what is good for them, not what is good for us. Nothing, let me repeat that, NOTHING magically changes the human nature of a person who becomes a government representative or agent. If they were pond scum before they started taking a government paycheck, they will continue to be pond scum on the government payroll.

    Stop making excuses for government — especially the excuse that government representatives and agents have good intentions but are misguided at times. They know full well what they are doing. Washington D.C. has and will continue to do everything in its power to disarm the citizens.

  14. There are also a couple of points that should be made about the District.

    1, The District of Columbia is just that – a Federal District. Not a state. That means that all laws passed there must be approved by Congress. During the sequester, the DC City Council was going wild trying to figure out how to pay DC employees, because their budget was controlled by Congress, and was not approved. Relevant point: Congress is directly complicit in DC politics. It’s their model of America’s future.

    2. There are more LEOs carrying concealed per capita in DC during the workday than anywhere else in the world. Why? Just about every agency located in DC has an armed enforcement branch, usually dressed in suits. That’s another reason why the crime rate in DC soars at night – most all of the Federal gun carriers have gone home to the burbs, leaving the MPD to clean up the blood.

    What’s the best time to commit a crime in DC? 7 am or 5 pm. Why? Because the roads are impassable (making timely MPD response impossible), and the Federal LEOs WILL NOT GET INVOLVED because they are coming to or from work and do not want to spend the paperwork time for something they view as a DC problem.

    Just a few observations from 35 years spent just across the border in PG and working in DC and NOVA.

  15. Because there are too few Vermonters in here. I must speak for the silent majority, Vermont is a great place for gun rights…low crime (except for the knuckleheads coming from NYC to peddle their drugs) and good common sense.

  16. Both cities are total shetholes but at least liberal pothead crazy Washington state has enough pro-gun people and politicians to keep this birth right a privilege. I say privilege because if it was a right one wouldn’t have to go through a process to carry or buy a firearm.

    • I disagree, for out of staters anyway. Oregon doesn’t have CCW reciprocity with any state, meaning I can’t carry when I visit my parents in Portland without getting an Oregon CCW permit. That’s a big demerit in my opinion.

      • Having lived in both states (although I’ve only been a gun owner in one of them), I can say that they’re both great places. Oregon’s refusal to recognize anyone else’s CCW permits isn’t a point in its favor, however.

  17. You didn’t have to go all the way to the left coast to get a comparison. Across the river in Virginia, where getting a permit is only slight more difficult than Washington State, the murder rate for Arlington and Fairfax counties, the Cities of Alexandria and Falls Church, with a combined population of 1.5 million had a grand total of 28 murders In 2012 tfor a rate of 1.9 per 100k.

    • Give it a year or so. Governor = D. AG = D. You know all those Federal contractor analysts that commute to/from NOVA? Interesting times are coming.

      • Gov Mac and his AG face an insurmountable pro Second Amendment supermajority in the House of Delegates. That means that the nominally pro-Second Amendment Democrats in the State Senate will not be selling just to please the new Governor when a bill can’t get past the House of Delgates. My guess is that Terry isn’t even going to try to move on restricting Second Amendment rights beyond some lip service.

  18. You don’t even have to compare DC to the other Washington. Just compare Prince George’s County, MD (limited, difficult to obtain CCW, no open carry, recently enacted, Brady/MAIG/MDA approved “assault weapons” ban) with Fairfax County, VA (open carry, shall issue CCW, no longer 1 a month restriction).

    Prince George’s has 871,000 residents. They had 109 murders in 2011, the most recent year I could find a number for.

    Fairfax County has about 1.1 million residents, and in 2011, had 11 murders, or almost neatly 10 times fewer murders than Prince George’s with “gun control.”

    I haven’t even bothered to sort out how these murders took place (stabbing, strangulation, vehicular homicide, gunshot, whatever). I can’t speculate as to why these murders happened, but I know that the perpetrators had more than the means to commit them. First year criminologists know that every crime has a means, motive, and opportunity, they don’t just happen because the means of mayhem are close at hand.

    So now matter what, it is not the presence or availability of the guns that causes the murders to take place. Are guns trafficked into bucolic states with strict gun control laws? Yes, but only because criminals there want them so that they can commit crimes, like murder. The guns for sale legally in my home state don’t cause mayhem. If they did, our streets would be awash in blood and many people in my neighborhood would be dead.

  19. Replace all of the people in Washington D.C. with people from Seattle. Deaths by gun would drop drastically. Reason: IT’S NOT THE GUNS STUPID…IT’S THE PEOPLE.

  20. You’re comparing apples to oranges. #1) The disparity between the wealthy and the poor in DC is just about the worst in the entire nation. Whereas, the people who live in Seattle are some of the wealthiest people in the nation. #3) Going solely by population numbers is a fallacy. Washington DC has an incredibly high influx of commuters and tourists. The population of the city doubles every single day. This isn’t true of cities like Seattle. DC brings in over 500,000 commuters alone every day. Seattle brings in less than 200,000.

    You’re really naive if you think the only difference between these two areas of the country are the gun laws.

    You could also mention that overall violent crime rates are down 50% in Washington D.C. in the last 15 years. You’re also comparing DC’s 2013 homicide rate to 2012, which was the lowest rate the city has ever had in its history. The odds were it was going to be higher the next year. How about you bring up the fact that the homicide rate was 4 times higher in the early 90s but tough legislation and an increase in the police forces dropped it down to a quarter of what it was?

    How about you also examine that every single state where gun legislation is the loosest also has the highest rates of gun related deaths per capita?

    • The whole commuter/tourist thing isn’t as significant a factor one might imagine. Tourist wise DC only has close to 20k more a day and although DC does have a lot of commuters, they are well, commuters. A wide range of folks, often making a decent enough wage who are commuting work and home. And lets be honest, TOURISTS and commuters aren’t going to account for a meaningful slice of the homicide rate.

      “but tough legislation and an increase in the police force…” You’re correct that looking at small blips means little and an increased police presence does help. However, nationally we saw a decline in homicide rates even in places where gun laws were loosened and new conceal/open carry laws were permitted/increased.

      You also stretch (Seattle/WA has statistically high number of displaced poor folks from other states staking on top of our local low income population) wealth disparity and invoke other states with high homicide rates/looser gun laws, which often isn’t true, while ignoring the fact that they are generally among the poorest in the nation. You make our own argument for us in that socioeconomic factors, not gun laws, are what drives homicide rates. And somehow I doubt you’re pointing out how the US has one of the highest income gaps (along with prison rates and…) in the world when you see articles/memes pretend that gun laws are the reason we have higher homicide rates that most European countries.

      I’m not against smart gun laws, we just don’t see many of them proposed. They even muddy up what should be sensible background check laws by making them go well beyond sales.

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