Latest Seattle Gun Ban Attempt

I urge everyone to read the below, and go to the Seattle site and comment ...and then seek out an attorney, and prepare to file suit on October 5th - individually, and resist all efforts to join your suit with others.

Following a shooting that injured three people at the Folklife Festival on May 24, 2008, Mayor Greg Nickels directed City of Seattle departments to study the adoption and enforcement of policies, rules and contractual agreements which would prohibit the possession firearms on city property.

The proposed Seattle Parks and Recreation administrative rule/policy would prohibit the possession of firearms at Parks Department facilities where children and youth are likely to be present. The proposed rule/policy would apply to:

• Playgrounds and Children’s play areas
• Sports Fields & Sports Courts
• Swimming and Wading Pools
• Spray Parks (Water Play Areas)
• Teen Life Centers;
• Community Centers
• Environmental Learning Centers
• Small Craft Centers
• Performing Arts Centers
• Tennis Centers

This rule/policy does not include any criminal or civil penalties. Rather, it constitutes conditions placed upon a person’s permission to enter or remain at a designated Parks Department facility at which appropriate signage has been posted. Such conditions shall be enforced in the same manner and pursuant to the same ordinances and statutes as similar conditions could be enforced by private property owners.

View the proposed firearms policy rule (PDF)

A response....

This policy fails to recognize the fundamental difference between a governmental body and a private body or individual.

To a broadly limited extent, private individuals or groups may set a wide array of restrictions (or permissions) that a governmental body may not - such private policy may restrict free speech or other civil rights on that private persons or groups propert(ies), and even base the restriction on vile, offensive, and/or irrational grounds.

Governmental bodies are much more limited in their ability to restrict the exercise of individuals civil rights on their assorted properties. Especially when the ban in question is *also* in violation of specific statutory law, in addition to State and Federal constitutional provisions (and in defiance of the formal opinion of the State Attorney General).

Knowingly enacting law or policy abusing fundamental civil rights after having been advised in advance by a States Attorney General that such action would be contrary to constitutional provision, state statute, and precedent creates massive civil liability (and possibly criminal liability) for both the city and those who would enforce or pass such legislation or regulatory act.

Hiding behind a theoretically toothless policy that uses the state trespass statute as an enforcement mechanism with criminal and civil penalties does not somehow make the constitutional and other issues all better - nor will it avert the massive liability risks inherent to such misadventure.

I urge the Mayor to withdraw this potentially hugely expensive policy until it can be re-examined by the new Mayor we elect in November, and failing that, Council action.

For myself, I shall consider legal options.