Last week, Cam noted how Democrats are ready to drop the hammer on people like you and me, and the reason they give is that they're trying to stop the violence that supposedly plagues our streets, yet violent offenders get a pass.
The shooting recently in Seattle is a prime example of that; however, one lawmaker seems to want to actually do something useful.
Rather than push more failed anti-gun policies, he wants to end the issue of juvenile offenders basically getting a slap on the wrist with a pool noodle.
The mass shooting that killed three people at Seattle Center during July’s Bite of Seattle festival is fueling a renewed effort to tighten Washington’s juvenile gun laws — this time around a “two strikes” model that would force the justice system to step in far earlier when minors are caught with firearms.
State Rep. David Hackney (D-11th District), who represents South King County, is leading the push, arguing that current law hands juvenile gun offenders too many chances before anyone intervenes.
Five Strikes Before the System Blinks
Under Washington law as it stands, a minor caught illegally carrying a firearm can cycle through the system repeatedly before facing a real consequence. The first four charges are routed into diversion — no incarceration, no probation, no formal supervision — and it isn’t until a fifth offense that a judge can order meaningful detention.
“In order to get into the criminal justice system for the charge of juvenile in possession of a firearm, you have to have four prior charges,” Hackney told KIRO 7. “The first four times it’s what they call diversion, not criminal justice.”
Hackney has been here before. In 2025, he sponsored a bill to lower that threshold from five to three, but it died without so much as a hearing. Now he wants to go further.
“What I really wanted was two times,” he said. “After your second time, if you’re still running around with a gun, we’ve got a problem that needs to be addressed. So I’m going to reduce it from three to two, and I’m going to drop the bill again.”
Now, the issue here isn't the gun. It's not the tool, but the tool using it. That's just how it works and how it will always work. Focusing on possession of a gun, in and of itself, isn't the best strategy.
That said, it's got to be better than letting juveniles keep walking until they end up murdering three innocent people who were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Now, does Hackney's bill have a shot in Hades of passing? Well, if they wouldn't accept dropping it to three in 2025, I doubt they'll support it going to two. Washington state has veered too far to the left for its own good, which is a shame, because there really shouldn't be even one "diversion" for a crime relating to any violent offense.
While the Seattle incident might get Hackney's bill a hearing, expect to hear more about how gun control is what's really needed, because all the measures they've passed in recent years that failed weren't what really failed. It was the lack of just one more measure that juvenile offenders like those involved in that shooting would have violated.
Seriously, it's like facepalming with a shovel listening to some of these people.
Still, I'd love to be wrong about Hackney's bill's chances. It would be nice to see someone actually take crime seriously for a change, rather than blaming us for all of society's ills, even as they let the worst of the worst walk the streets.
They really do blame the guns, not the people. That's obvious.
It's obviously idiotic, that is.
