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Yesterday, the Washington state House passed a bill that bans the open carry of firearms at or near permitted public demonstrations and at the Capitol campus in Olympia. This was to address the purported feelings of threats when people show up to rallies with guns.

State Rep. Jenny Graham joined the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH to discuss the bill, and the balance between constitutional rights and public safety.

“One of the things that I think that, I, as a member of the Public Safety Committee and Civil Rights and Judiciary assistant ranking member have kind of discovered, is that you’re hearing the term ‘gun control,’ which there are some individuals that are rightfully concerned about the violence that we’ve seen,” she said.

Washington state House passes bill banning open carry at protests, state Capitol

“The other side of that, which is just as important, is gun accountability for the individuals that are actually committing the crimes, and they’re not being managed, in my opinion, the best that we could do,” she continued. “So I have been really working hard to advocate, especially with so much of the gun violence that’s happening, that we as a state should not be working overtime to let the individuals, especially persistent offenders, back out again.”

As Jason suggested, part of the reason why so many people decided to open carry at these events is because of the presence of Antifa and other agitators who bring weapons, and yet he doesn’t hear concerns from the left regarding that.

“We had a near five-hour debate on the floor yesterday, and I definitely brought that up. I talked about an event that happened last weekend where teenagers were assaulted by Antifa and, you know, that’s got to be very threatening,” Graham responded.

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“If somebody is wearing black and you can’t see their face, and they have weapons and, honestly, they’re not being treated in the way that they should be, where they understand that that’s unacceptable behavior to attack other individuals … (they) expect that they’re going to not be held accountable for it.”

She says that police hesitancy to intervene adds to this unsafe atmosphere, and emboldens offenders.

“And, frankly, that’s my concern is that with the Washington State Patrol, I’ve seen twice now where they have not intervened, the Supreme Court ruled that they don’t have a duty to intervene and because of the law enforcement reform legislation, you have police that are worried now that if they do intervene, it’s going to escalate,” she said.

“There’s real concern that the violence is going to absolutely increase because they’re emboldened to do it.”

Listen to the Jason Rantz Show weekday afternoons from 3 – 6 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (or HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here