imported post
I found out more about this event,
It's not only sponsored by Elliot Bay Books and Center for Civic Life, it is also sponsored by Seattle PI, and Washington CeaseFire, which means that the entire upper management of Ceasefire will be there.
Joe Waldron posted this in pnwopencarry:
Hear, hear! A little sanity in this discussion.
Open acrrying to this event would be an "open" invitation to
Seattle/SPD/ WA Ceasefire to push for a new outright ban on open carry
(something we had repealed nearly 10 years ago, and something Lonnie has
devoted a great deal of effort in promoting through rational education of
our law enforcement community. To do otherwise would be to talk a giant
step backwards.
Not to mention the fact that it would also open the door to Seattle
demanding that preemption be split down the middle.
It's clear from her article (I have her book on my desk but haven't found
the time to read it yet) that Ms Burbick is a man-hater. She fits right
in there at WSU with racist professors and other tolerated intolerant
bigots.
She's joining tonight with gun-haters, another protected class of bigots.
And Seattleite/SPD leadership who would like nothing more than for us to
give them the "ammunition" they need to go running to Olympia screaming
the sky is falling (or at least raining guns).
The situation in Olympia is very delicate at this point. On the surface,
with a supermajority in BOTH chambers, the Democrats can do anything they
want. Anything.
There are a couple of us who do this for a living who are working very
carefully to see that "anything" isn't dumped on us. We're working with a
small handful of pro-gun Democrats, and more importantly, with a handful
of pragmatic otherwise-liberal Democrats, to keep the issue under wraps.
A confrontation in Seattle tonight would destroy that effort.
Just one opinion. An educated opinion. From someone who is in his
fourteenth legislative session (as in Lonnie's 14th Amendment). And from
someone who has the ear of several Democrat leaders at this time.
Joe W
I concur with Waldron's assessment of the situation. With Ceasefire involved and attending, they will most certainly play up any open carry at one of their events as an direct attack on them and they will march to Olympia and get an open carry ban passed again, and they certainly will not put in for a CPL licensure exemption like the last open carry ban had, not to mention that it will likely result in more gun control besides just an open carry ban.
Right now it's likely that the AWB proposals and gun show loophole crap will not pass because the leadership doesn't want to deal with gun bills. However, if we open carry at a private Ceasefire event with Seattle PI taking pictures and spinning the story, we will not only screw over ourselves open carry wise, we will also screw ourselves for other forms of gun control.
This isn't a situation where we are attending a public hearing of a governmental agency, like with TriMet down in Portland. This is invading a private event by people who are complete and total gun haters. We would score a lot more points destroying their logic by bringing up Rep. John Bingham, who proposed the 14th amendment to protect the right of the newly freed african americans to carry and bear arms wherever they went, and the Pink Pistols issues.
I spent a lot of time and a lot of work getting the law enforcement in Washington State educated on open carry. I certainly have no qualms about open carrying, as I've taken the lead on it here in Washington on it. However, on this event, I cannot support it. If it makes me seem like a coward, then I'll gladly take the designation, especially if it prevents a flood of gun control passing.
Not to mention about two years of work on the open carry issues here in Washington.
