Writing in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, gun-rights advocates Alan Gottlieb and Joe Waldron wrote that “Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, behaving like the would-be ruler of a ‘city state,’ has decided to ignore Washington’s longstanding firearms statute regarding the legal carry of concealed handguns by licensed private citizens on city property.”
Gottlieb is founder of the Second Amendment Foundation. Joe Waldron is legislative director for the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
They added that Nickels announced he will ban all guns from city property — places that belong to all citizens, including those who are legally armed — by executive order, which is not subject to City Council review.
This arrogant fiat blatantly violates both the letter and spirit of this state’s model pre-emption law, which places all authority for firearms regulation in the hands of the Legislature. He [Nickels] ignores a section in the law that specifically exempts people licensed to carry a concealed handgun from such firearm restrictions.
Nickels believes he has found a “loophole” in the state statute, thanks to a Washington Supreme Court ruling last year. That ruling dealt with the city of Sequim’s ability to regulate a private gun show on public property, but that case did not address licensed concealed carry — only the regulation of a commercial enterprise.
State lawmakers should be outraged at this subversion of the legislative process, and all citizens should be alarmed at the mayor’s arrogance. Unable to gut state pre-emption, he now thinks he can simply ignore it.…
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/368086_beararms24.html
