Progressive Seattle mayoral candidate lays out plan to curb gun violence

Police secure the site of a shooting on 3rd Avenue and Pine Street in the central business district of Seattle, Washington on January 22, 2020. (Photo by Karen Ducey / Getty Images)

A 2-year-old girl was shot dead in the parking lot of an auto zone on the 23rd and Jackson. A 16-year-old boy was shot dead opening the front door of his Rainier Beach home. Two young women shot, one fatally, while waiting in the parking lot of the North African American Museum in Seattle to pick up a friend.

Gun violence has increased in Seattle and King Counties in the past 15 months. There was a 36% increase in shootings in 2020, according to the King County Prosecutor’s Office, and 2021 is well on the way to reaching or exceeding that as we head into the spring and summer when gun violence generally increases.

The 2020 rise in gun violence in King County has continued, the prosecutor warns

The shootings are full-scale and include alleged street-level retaliation against those with behavioral health problems who are carrying guns.

Former State MP Jessyn Farrell has a plan to address the issue if she is chosen from the crowded Seattle Mayor election.

“Gun-free Seattle is possible if we have the courage and commitment to adopt the guidelines and fund the programs that we know are working. The only thing stopping us from achieving this goal is the City Hall’s lack of leadership and resources, and that has to change, “Farrell said as she presented her detailed plan to Omari Salisbury on Converge Media’s Morning Update Show this week submitted.

Highlights of the plan include:

• Established the Seattle Office of Violence Prevention
• Increase public investment in community organizations working to prevent violence
• Prohibition of offensive weapons and restrictions on magazine capacity
• Funding a public awareness campaign in schools / points of sale to promote safe storage
• ERPO extension to hate speech
• Disarm hatred by funding anti-hatred educational programs in public schools
• Extending restrictions on open wearing in public places such as parks and urban facilities

“The people who die on our streets don’t have time to progress gradually, they need leaders whose actions show that they understand that even a single death from avoidable gun violence is unacceptable,” Farrell said.

To finally end gun violence, Farrell said, “we need to build the social, cultural and economic supports that create healthy and thriving communities for everyone in our city while dismantling systems of oppression, white supremacy and hatred.”

“If we invest to help communities thrive, treat gun violence as a public health crisis, and put a renewed and relentless focus on eliminating dangerous access to firearms – we can and will live in a city free from shootings,” said Farrell.

She is the first of more than a dozen mayoral candidates to devise a detailed plan for gun violence, a plan inspired by those who long advocated groups like the Alliance for Gun Responsibility.

The gun rights community got wind of the plan and offered their thoughts.

“As a former state lawmaker, the self-proclaimed progressive who gets things done should remember that Washington has a 36-year-old state pre-emptive law,” wrote Dave Workman at Liberty Park Press.

If elected, her literature states that she will “support local and state efforts to implement sensible firearms regulations, including: bans on assault weapons, permits to purchase firearms, magazine capacity restrictions, and efforts to make background checks at a single point of sale to centralize ”. , ‘”Workman wrote.

“That’s the wish list for gun control on the far left,” he added.

These six candidates are earning the most money in the race for the next Seattle mayor

At nearly $ 87,000, Farrell is currently fifth on the ever-growing list of mayoral hopefuls. She lies behind the likes of current and former City Council Presidents Lorena Gonzales and Bruce Harrell, Andrew Grant Houston, and current fundraising executive Colleen Echohawk, who owns more than $ 366,000.

Follow Hanna Scott on Twitter or email her here.