A recent letter to the editor on guns misses a few facts and some simple logic.
“Firearms are confiscated with illegal search and seizure without probable cause and/or due process,” according to the writer.
This statement is factually incorrect.
Firearms can be legally taken away from individuals under a law approved by Washington voters in 2016.
Police and family members can ask a judge to keep firearms out of the hands of people they believe pose a danger to themselves or others even if there is no criminal behavior.
The key word here is that permission must first be obtained from a judge before any weapons are confiscated using search and seizure.
“The State Patrol legally sells confiscated or forfeited firearms to generate revenue,” said the writer.
This is the way the system works now but that doesn’t mean that it should continue to be that way.
Law enforcement agencies across Washington state sold more than 6,000 firearms that had been used in crimes between 2010 and the end of 2017 and more than a dozen of those weapons later turned up in new criminal investigations according to a yearlong analysis by the Associated Press.
It’s a dumb idea that these firearms end up in the firearms market where even the remote possibility that they might later be used to commit another crime exists.
So because of this the state Legislators should end this practice statewide.
I’ll gladly chip in a few bucks a year if it might save a few lives, wouldn’t you?
Stan Riddle,
Sequim