The Bite of Seattle shooting earlier this year is yet another reminder that Democratic demands for gun control are meaningless, as such laws do not prevent criminals from acquiring guns, and Democrats don’t care to enforce them anyway.
The food festival shooting that took place this summer left three dead and four others wounded, including a 2-year-old child. The defense attorney for the 15-year-old suspect arrested in the shooting said that the suspect was firing his gun into the crowd only in self-defense, alleging that one of the other suspects involved fired first. The 15-year-old, who was captured in possession of a gun with a 33-round magazine, was released from juvenile detention to house arrest by a judge while awaiting trial, over the objection of prosecutors.
‘TRANS GIRLS NEED GUNS’: TERRORISM INQUIRY PUTS SUPPORTER OF LEFTIST GUN COMMUNITY BEHIND BARS
No one would mistake Seattle or Washington state for havens of the Second Amendment. Both the city and state are run by Democrats, who have free rein to impose whatever gun control restrictions they wish, provided those restrictions hold up in court. But every aspect of this case appears to undermine the gun control agenda.
Take the very question of legality. The 15-year-old suspect was arrested with a ghost gun equipped with a magazine that could hold 33 rounds. This is illegal on three fronts: Ghost guns are illegal in Washington, a 33-round magazine exceeds the state’s 10-round limit unless grandfathered in before 2022, and a 15-year-old would be prohibited from owning a firearm anyway. The grandfather provision is not relevant here, because he certainly didn’t own an eligible magazine when he was 11.
THE NEW YORK TIMES’S ‘RIGHT TO KILL’ STORY GETS THE SECOND AMENDMENT BACKWARD
More relevant, though, is enforcement, or the lack thereof. In this case, a 15-year-old was allegedly walking around with an illegal gun and an illegal magazine, engraved with “1 SHOT, 1 KILL,” and took part in a fatal shooting. Prosecutors maintain that the suspect is a threat to the community because “there is no greater threat to the community than a person indiscriminately firing into a crowd of adults and children.” Not only that, but the boy’s brother had previously been released to home supervision in an unrelated case in May. By August, alerts showed that he may have tampered with or even removed his court-ordered tracking device.
We’ve known for years now that Democratic gun control proposals do little, if anything, to stop violent crime or prevent high-profile shootings, but the bigger problem facing Democrats now is their refusal to enforce existing gun laws against real criminals. Democrats cannot consistently demand additional gun control for law-abiding citizens while weakening sentences or pretrial release terms for criminals who use guns in their crimes, yet that is exactly what they claim the country must do.