Even thought the Attorney General says that municipalities cannot restrict the possession of firearms the Mayor of Seattle is planning on doing just that. He is slapping the state lawmakers in the face by essentially saying that he does not care what they say he cannot do he will do what he wants because he is the Mayor and it is his city.

His plan is to prohibit firearms in and on city property by making possession a trespassing offense. In the AG opinion 2008 no. 8 the AG has stated that this is in violation of state firearm preemption and that "In our judgment, a city does not have the authority to generally prohibit the possession of firearms on city property except to the extent authorized by RCW 9.41.290. Even in the case of criminal trespass, a member of the public is only required to comply with “lawful conditions”. RCW 9A.52.090(2). Prohibiting possession of firearms on city property would not be a lawful condition, because RCW 9.41.290 preempts the power of a city to impose such a prohibition."

Mayor Nichols and his staff feel that they have a duty to enforce common sense gun laws and that this ban is one of those. What the Mayor and his almighty staff fail to see is that this is only going to create a gun-free zone that will endanger the safety of law abiding citizens. Criminals will now utilize these areas as their stomping grounds and prey on the patrons of the city and it's visitors. So much for common sense laws.

The only thing that is common sense about this ban is that it doesn't take common sense to figure out that criminals will be in abundance in the parks and other city owned property and that the police will be unable to protect us. Remember that police are known as first responders not first protectors. I for one do not want them responding to my death scene but would rather they respond to the scene of an attempted criminal attack. This will not happen unless we law abiding and licensed citizens are allowed to carry our firearms in accordance with the State Constitution and State Law.

You can read more about this in the Seattle-PI