Stupid Life Choices
White House “Gun Safety” Plan Won’t Prevent Crime
Two guys were allegedly involved in robbing this credit union, while the White House was pushing a gun control measure that didn’t discuss crime prevention or holding criminals accountable.
Every story has a beginning, and this one involves the place where my family does its banking, the Sno Falls Credit Union in beautiful downtown scenic North Bend, Wash. On the afternoon of Jan. 26, a pair of goofballs decided to rob the place.
This credit union was founded by my late mother-in-law and her long-deceased husband about 67 years ago, so there’s something of a personal angle to this story.
The two suspects were evidently determined, according to a statement by police on their Facebook page. The perp who actually went inside passed a note to a teller “stating he was armed with a gun and would kill everyone in the credit union and himself before police arrived,” the police statement said. That’s not just an “implied threat” of violence, which is normally associated with any kind of robbery note, but a real right-down-to-it promise of massive lethal violence. You betcha the tellers complied while hitting the silent alarm, and by the time police arrived within a couple of minutes, this guy was running to the getaway car, hopping in and fleeing the scene with his wheelman.
Not that it matters much, but a fair number of local residents have guns. I know this because a lot of them belong to the same gun club where I once served as president. While it is highly unlikely there might ever be a confrontation between any of them and an outlaw, anytime a holdup occurs in such a community, I’m reminded of the events of Oct. 5, 1892 in Coffeyville, Kansas, involving the infamous Dalton Gang, or the much earlier fireworks in Northfield, Minnesota on Sept. 7, 1876, in which the starring cast included Frank and Jesse James, the Younger brothers, plus Clell Miller, Charlie Pitts and Bill Chadwell.
Besides, the community has a fairly strong presence of state troopers who patrol Interstate 90, the city is served by the Snoqualmie Police Department and at any given moment, there may be two or three King County sheriff’s deputies in the neighborhood. There are only three ways out: east or west on I-90 or northwest on Highway 202. If I wanted to pull a holdup, this place would not be my first, second or even third choice.
The White House Plan
Coincidentally, one day before this caper unfolded, the Biden White House announced “new executive actions to help promote safe storage of firearms … to reduce gun violence and make our communities safer.” Right up front, the White House statement asserted, “Gun violence is the leading cause of death of children in America.” The irony of that comment will become clear as you finish reading.
This 1,254-word announcement offered details such as “76% of school shootings are committed with guns from the home.” (It overlooks the fact that 100% of school shootings occur in so-called “gun-free zones.”)
The White House notes how the federal “Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) reported that from 2017 to 2021, local law enforcement reported 770,642 private theft incidents involving 1,026,538 firearms. A rising trend has been firearms stolen from unattended motor vehicles.” It doesn’t mention that law-abiding citizens are often compelled to leave their guns in their vehicles because of “sensitive places” laws which prevent them from entering certain places with lawfully-concealed defensive firearms. There is also no acknowledgment that smash-and-grab after-hours gun store thefts account for quite a few stolen guns.
Buried about halfway through the Biden announcement is this revealing observation: “Local leaders, like school officials, community and faith leaders, and law enforcement can be trusted, credible messengers when it comes to providing guidance on gun violence prevention and safe firearm storage options.” Translation: The administration wants to use these local officials and leaders to spread Joe Biden’s gun control agenda, apparently because they are trusted in their local communities.
The Biden administration is apparently keener on so-called
“safe storage” than in going after criminals who misuse guns.
Biden’s Bullet Points
Here is more of the administration’s plan, which a lot of readers may not have heard about from the establishment media, with bullet points to emphasize their apparent importance to the White House scheme:
• The U.S. Department of Education will take new action on safe firearm storage by sending a letter to school principals across the country explaining the importance of safe storage and encouraging them to communicate with parents, families, caregivers, and the broader community about how safe storage can protect students in school and in their communities.
• The U.S. Department of Education will also issue a new communications template that principals and school leaders can use to engage with parents and families about the importance of safe firearm storage, and encourage more people to take preventive action by safely storing firearms.
• The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) will release a guide to safe storage of firearms in order to provide subject matter expertise on different types of storage devices and best practices for safely storing firearms. This is the most comprehensive guide on safe storage ever released by the federal government.
There is more, and some of it is actually laudable, such as efforts to prevent veteran suicide, and at least make some attempt to stem substance abuse, and address the mental health crisis. Even Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, has championed a pilot project in Washington State aimed at suicide prevention, for which he has received very little media recognition.
What Isn’t There
The administration has “urged states to enact and implement strong laws requiring firearms owners to safely store their firearms in their homes and vehicles. The laws should impose a clear standard to penalize those who do not safely store their weapons and whose weapons end up being used for violence.” However, there isn’t any mention of prosecuting and locking up criminals who actually misuse those guns.
You won’t find any reference to jailing and sentencing recidivist offenders to long stretches in the Gray Bar Hotel. There is nothing about deterring criminal activity. Apparently, the administration thinks it will be more effective to criminalize being the victim of a residential burglary or car prowl rather than jailing the miscreants who steal all of those firearms.
The White House says this project will save lives. It sounds like one more social experiment which puts more blame on honest gun owners than on criminals who ignore safe storage laws like they disregard any other gun control law.
And this brings us back around to the two guys who robbed the credit union
Snoqualmie Police quickly responded to the robbery and chased
the perps down Interstate 90 toward Seattle. When they caught the
suspects, they discovered both were 15-year-olds, and one had a criminal record.
End of the Road
Once the two suspects headed west on I-90 toward Seattle, with police and sheriff’s deputies in hot pursuit, their getaway didn’t get far. As the saying goes, “You can’t outrun Motorola.”
They hit another car when they tried to use an off-ramp as they passed through Bellevue and quickly got back on the freeway only to be stopped cold about two miles later by the Washington State Patrol, which pulled a PIT (Pursuit Intervention Technique) maneuver to bring their flight to an end. Fortunately, nobody was injured.
The wrap to this story is something out of a bad movie script. The perps in this case were both 15-year-olds, meaning they weren’t old enough to legally drive. One of the two already had a criminal record, having been convicted of second-degree robbery. They were in a stolen car, taken earlier in the day, from a community several miles to the south.
Their entire grab came to a pitiful $10. They just swapped the rest of their lives for five bucks apiece because no matter where they go or what they do from now on, the events of Jan. 26 will be with them forever.
Had the stars been poorly aligned, one or both of these teens could have been hurt or killed, either by gunshot or in a crash. Perhaps some bright bulb at the White House can explain how another gun control scheme, ostensibly about safe gun storage, will prevent minors like these kids, who should have been in school and planning a weekend instead of making stupid life choices.
