Gun rights groups sue Seattle mayor
by Dave Workman
Senior Editor
When Seattle, WA, Mayor Greg Nickels announced last year that he would ban guns from public property, he was warned that gun rights organizations would respond.
And now they have.
The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), National Rifle Association (NRA), Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), Washington Arms Collectors (WAC) and five Seattle-area residents have hit the city with a lawsuit. At press time, Seattle attorney Steve Fogg, representing the plaintiffs, was preparing to ask the court for a summary judgment.
“The ban makes it impossible, under threat of criminal trespass penalty, to lawfully carry firearms for the protection of spouses, partners and children on public property where these citizens have a right to be,” noted SAF Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb.
Under the ban, gunowners would not be cited for violating a no-guns policy, but they would be arrested for criminal trespass if they refuse to leave a park after being asked to do so by parks employees or police.
Washington state has one of the nation’s oldest, and frequently copied, preemption statutes. It places sole authority for all firearms regulation in the hands of the state legislature and forbids local jurisdictions from adopting their own gun control regulations unless they are consistent with state law. First adopted in 1983 and strengthened by amendment in 1985, the statute has served as a model for similar laws around the country. Nickels was repeatedly cautioned that a ban on firearms on public property would be illegal.
Nickels ignored the warning, and an opinion from the state Attorney General that said a ban would violate the law, and announced a ban on firearms from some 500 facilities managed by the city’s Parks and Recreation Department.
When Nickels, who will be leaving office at the end of this month, having come in third in the August mayoral primary, declared last year that he would lobby the legislature in January to amend the state law so Seattle could set its own gun policies, state lawmakers developed a case of communal deafness.
Public sentiment went strongly against the ban idea almost from the start. Nickels initially announced the ban idea in reaction to a shooting incident at Seattle’s annual Folklife Festival in 2008, the first and only time such an incident had occurred in the festival’s history. Even the two shooting victims told reporters they would oppose such a ban. When the city asked for public comment on the latest ban proposal, 1,088 people responded by e-mail and another 10 left comments on a city telephone answering machine. Only 44 of those comments supported the ban.
Gottlieb says the issue has broad statewide interest.
“This ban affects the rights of all Washington citizens who may visit Seattle parks property and recreation facilities,” he said, “and especially thousands of Seattle gunowners, many of whom are members of SAF, NRA, CCRKBA and the Arms Collectors.”
After a year of verbal jousting with gun activists, Nickels in September announced a much scaled back plan, banning guns only from parks facilities, and not all city property as originally intended. The ban came in the form of a regulation change signed by Parks Supt. Timothy Gallagher, who, along with Nickels and the city, is named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
Fogg is with the law firm of Corr Cronin Michelson Baumgardner & Preece LLP. Within hours of filing the lawsuit, another law firm with offices in Seattle, Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe announced that it would represent the city pro bono. According to CBS News.com correspondent Declan McCullagh, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe have represented plaintiffs in lawsuits against gun manufacturers and was “one of the firms honored at a Legal Community Against Violence dinner” earlier this year.
The individual plaintiffs provide a cross section that has surprised many in the traditionally liberal Seattle region.
Winnie Chan is a Department of Corrections (DOC) employee who lives and works in West Seattle. When she is not on-duty, she often carries her personal handgun on a state concealed pistol license (CPL), particularly when she is going to be in unfamiliar locations, out late at night, or in large/crowded places. The DOC prohibits her from carrying her state-issued firearm when she is off-duty, so she carries her own gun. She is concerned that people she has encountered on the job may be disgruntled and pose a threat to her safety.
Robert Kennar also works for DOC and occasionally visits Seattle parks and recreation facilities. He frequently works in Seattle and he has been a crime victim. He is licensed to carry and always carries his personal firearm when not on duty.
Ray Carter, a West Seattle resident employed as a car salesman in Seattle, is active in the gay community. He co-chaired Seattle’s annual Pride Parade in the mid-1990s and founded the Seattle Chapter of Pink Pistols/Cease Fear. Licensed to carry, he frequently visits parks.
Gray Peterson of Lynnwood, a community several miles north of the city, also often visits Seattle parks facilities with his domestic partner. Active in the Seattle-area gay community, Peterson is licensed to carry and does so where it is legal because of concerns that he is vulnerable to hate-related crimes.
Gary Goedecke is owner and proprietor of Pikeplace Marketwear, a 35-year old business at Seattle’s historic Pike Place Market. Peter Steinbrook Park is directly adjacent to the Market and is a very dangerous place. Goegecke fears for the safety of his wife (who also works at the Market) and his employees. A resident of Bothell in north King County a few miles from Seattle, he has been actively involved with the Pike Place Market for years. He is an avid gunowner and carries a concealed pistol wherever he can.
While the lawsuit does not specifically allude to Washington’s very strong right to keep and bear arms state constitutional provision, Gottlieb suggested that the Seattle ban violates it.
“It essentially impairs the right of law-abiding citizens to bear arms for personal protection, which is explicitly protected by Article 1, Section 24 of the state constitution,” he said.
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