Washington Ceasefire and Ceasefire Oregon Team Up to Ban Sales of New Assault Weapons on West Coast and Limit Ammunition Magazine Clips to Ten Bullets– Two state legislative push looks to extends current ban in California
- Partners include Equal Rights Washington
- New independent poll shows 65% of adults in two states support ban including 83% of all democrats and 57% of all independents
- 75% of democrats are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports an AWB versus only 11% that are less likely.
- Sign the online petition at www.change.org
- Contact us through this website to gather signatures
- Contact your elected officials and candidates and ask them where they stand on assault weapons
Research Shows that when an assault weapon was used in a mass shooting, the number of victims increased by 155%!
Press Release
July 27, 2016
Contact: Ralph Fascitelli
Ralphfascitelli@gmail.com
206-369-2612
New Poll of Washington and Oregon Adults Shows Strong Support for Ban on Sale of Assault Weapons and Limits on Ammunition Capacity.
State Gun Safety Groups Pushing for “West Coast Wall” on Assault Weapons Sales
Seattle-WA. A representative survey of 310 Washington and Oregon adults, including 43% with firearms present in their home, gave strong support to both a ban on the sale of new assault weapons and a ten bullet capacity limit on magazine ammunition clips. By more than a 5 to 2 margin (65%-25%), respondents favored the ban on assault weapons with a similar majority in favor of a ten bullet maximum on magazine ammunition clips (63%-25%).
The July poll which was jointly sponsored by Washington Ceasefire and Ceasefire Oregon, has a 90% confidence level with a 5.6% margin of error. The poll shows the extent to which a continuous, ongoing string of high profile tragedies has raised the political profile of the gun violence issue in the Pacific Northwest. Indeed, 52% of all respondents said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supported an assault weapons ban versus 29% who would be less likely.
By more than 9-1 (83%-9%) Democrats favored a ban on assault weapons and are far more likely to vote for a candidate who supports a ban on assault weapons (75%-11%). Even independents favored a ban on assault weapons by almost a 2 to 1 margin (57%-29%)
Only 11% of respondents felt that gun violence was not a big problem in our country with just 2% of Democrats denying its importance. Fewer than 22% felt that Washington and Oregon State elected officials had devoted sufficient attention to the gun violence problem and only about 19% felt their respective governors had shown strong leadership on the gun problem.
The new campaign comes in the wake of recent judicial clarification regarding the legality of an assault weapon ban. Specifically by refusing last month to hear an appeal that would have overturned a Connecticut ban on semi-automatic assault weapons, the Supreme Court validated that an assault weapons ban is within the scope of the Second Amendment. The impact of semi-automatic firearms has been validated by research by Everytown for Gun Safety which showed that when high capacity weapons are used in mass shootings, 13.3 people on average are shot, which is 155% higher than in other mass shootings.
The independent poll is being presented at a press conference by representatives of Washington Ceasefire and Ceasefire Oregon at 10:00am July 27 at the Coterie Workshop at 1414 Fourth Ave in downtown Seattle. Both groups plan to push for legislation in their respective states in the upcoming sessions. If both are successful, a “west coast wall” will have been created against the sale of assault weapons since California is one of seven states to have already instituted a ban.
Washington Ceasefire. Since 1983 this Seattle-based citizen activist group has been dedicated to reducing gun violence. Ceasefire sees the adoption of safer, child-proof, smart gun technology along with reasonable, common sense, gun safety legislation at the state level as the most promising near term paths to reducing the almost 34,000 gun deaths annually in the US.
Ceasefire Oregon works to prevent gun violence by advocating reasonable, effective gun laws. We educate the public and legislators about gun violence, lobby on behalf of bills that will help make our communities safer, and work to prevent the passage of bills that would make it easier for dangerous people to obtain and carry firearms.