Dori: Nice job to Ballard homeowner for defending himself in burglary

A couple of weeks ago, the City of Seattle announced a tough new gun law. If a gun owner does not lock up their firearm, and somebody steals it, then uses it in a crime, the owner could be fined up to $10,000. I think this law is absolutely unconstitutional, and how they would enforce it is beyond me.

With the crime as rampant as it is in our entire region, with all of these druggies and tweakers who are breaking into houses to steal stuff for their next fix, you have to be your own first line of defense. If you don’t want to rely on the six, seven, eight-minute response time for police and want to deal with the problem right away, owning a gun is a good way. As long as your gun is safely secured and you don’t have small children in the house, you should be able to keep a weapon on hand.

Here’s what I want the Seattle City Council to consider. You have created this criminal culture in Seattle. We have the worst property crime in any major city in the United States. And it’s far worse than the official numbers, because a lot of crimes don’t get reported.

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Early Sunday morning, a Ballard homeowner called 911. He said that a guy had broken into his house (which was just three blocks from my childhood best friend’s house). At 4:15 a.m., the homeowner was woken up by someone breaking in. He grabbed his handgun, fired a round through the door, hit the intruder, called 911, and saw a dark-colored station wagon driving away from the house. Ten minutes later, police were notified that a 35-year-old man with a gunshot wound had just arrived at Ballard’s Swedish Medical Center.

Here’s a homeowner who decided he would be his own first line of defense. Now, if you’re not comfortable with guns or if you have kids in the house, you shouldn’t have a firearm. But if you are comfortable, and you don’t have small children, and you want to have a gun readily accessible, I think Seattle telling you that you have to put it in a safe in case someone breaks into your house and steals it is pure insanity. Nice job to that homeowner for defending himself and his property.

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