The debate between U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and her challenger Republican Tiffany Smiley revealed to voters the stark differences between the two who are vying to represent Washington voters in the U.S. Senate. Sen. Murray showed that she would lead the effort to rubber stamp President Joe Biden’s gun control wishes while Smiley would stand for Americans’ Constitutional rights.
For Sen. Murray, her gun control platform is based on two tries and a lie.
The issues of crime and gun control were both featured questions in the debate. Sen. Murray assailed her opponent for earning the backing of the NRA, but Smiley countered that she also earned the backing of The Washington Council of Police & Sheriffs (WACOPS) and the Fraternal Order of Police. Sen. Murray had no response when Smiley pointed out that she stood on the Senate floor in June 2020 demanding that police funds be diverted from those in uniform.
“We have a crime crisis in Washington state,” Smiley said. “It doesn’t matter if you live in Spokane or you live in Asotin County or you’re up in the San Juan Islands. I’ve been everywhere and crime is on the rise everywhere. My opponent, Senator Murray, June of 2020, she went on the Senate floor called for funds to be diverted from our police force.”
Sen. Murray pivoted away from her call to defund police and instead pointed to guns as the driver of crime. She pointed to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act as just “small steps,” teeing up her gun control wish list.
Two Tries
“We need to ban assault weapons,” Sen. Murray said. “We need to make sure we have really good background checks and enforce our ability to make sure that those who are dangerous do not have guns.”
Those claims, though, don’t follow what crime experts know. First, the FBI just released its Uniform Crime Report that showed – again – that more murders are committed with knives, fists and clubs than by all rifles combined, not just the Modern Sporting Rifle (MSR), or what she maligns as an “assault weapon.”
Also, it was the firearm industry that has been pushing for accuracy in the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The firearm industry championed the idea of creating a point-of-sale instant background check. It was also the firearm industry that pushed to get 16 states to change their laws to submit all disqualifying adjudicated mental health records submitted to the FBI so the background check system works as intended. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) named his legislation – the FIX NICS Act – after NSSF’s program.
That legislation compels federal agencies and incentivizes states to submit all disqualifying records to the FBI. Further, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act looks at the juvenile records of adults under 21 to ensure there are no factors that happened as a youth that would disqualify an adult to purchase a firearm.
Sen. Murray might not remember the success of the FIX NICS Act because she chose not to co-sponsor the bill, despite 78 senators that did. Her claims that not enough is being done to look at background checks is disingenuous.
The Lie
Sen. Murray also lied to the audience that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot conduct research into so-called gun violence. They have and they do. She’s referring to the Dickey Amendment, which was first signed into law in 1993. The amendment states, “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”
The key words are “advocate or promote gun control.” It’s simply not true that the funding for research hasn’t been there, as antigun advocates and their allies in Congress would have the public believe. The CDC’s budget has more than tripled since the Dickey Amendment was passed to over $6 billion. If the CDC was being told they couldn’t study anything gun-related, they didn’t listen very well.
The CDC studied guns and suicide, noise and lead exposure at ranges, firearm violence prevention in Wilmington, Del., and issued a report on firearm homicides and suicides in metropolitan areas. That doesn’t include studies by the FBI, Department of Justice and Congressional studies.
President Barack Obama signed a 2013 Executive Order that gave $10 million to the CDC for “gun violence” research.
Sen. Murray’s claims that guns are the cause of crime ring hollow. She was silent when “Raz the Warlord” was passing out rifles from a Tesla in Seattle’s infamous Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) during the violence that raged in the summer of 2020.
Smiley came to the debate with the receipts to show Sen. Murray’s grudge against lawful gun ownership and blind eye to crime.
“We need to make sure that we protect our Second Amendment rights for law-abiding citizens and that we keep weapons out of the hands of criminals,” Smiley said. “Again, crime is out of control, Senator Murray you are to blame. Anyone can go to her record at pattyversuspublicsafety.com. Thirty years in the Senate and this is where we are.”
The fact that the Seattle Times did not say that their endorsed candidate Patty Murray won the debate shows that even they acknowledge that Tiffany Smiley cleaned her clock. https://t.co/ZvU6FBtiHM
— Ari Hoffman (@thehoffather) October 24, 2022
NSSF did just that. The record there shows that Sen. Murray is advocating for the wrong people. While she works to deny law-abiding citizens the ability to defend themselves, she voted against legislation to target criminals, voted to let crimes go without prosecution and actually voted to allow criminals in prison to receive taxpayer-funded stimulus checks. Her admonition of crime that ravaged Seattle was pathetic. Smiley documented Sen. Murray calling CHAZ “legitimate anger,” even though it was the site of murders, assaults and robberies.
Washington voters have a chance to make change. Sen. Murray offers more of the same. More attempts at gun control. More lies about funding the CDC. More rubber stamps for President Joe Biden’s wish list to ban guns. Washington voters can learn how to register to vote, where to vote and on Nov. 8, turn out. Don’t Risk Your Rights. #GUNVOTE.
Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
Most days I honestly wish TTAG-n-friends had a network akin to CSPAN. I would honestly not tire of sitting around watching live and pre-recorded commentary on all things 2A.
I live in WA. I’m sure the dems will cheat regardless, but I’m praying Smiley wins. Murray is the worst. Pure Communist.
I’ll bet they have the printing presses on standby.
And more Democrat votes will magically appear to be counted just as the Republican observers are shown the door.
Yep. The standard was set in 2020. If the democrat vote count does not look good just declare that vote counting has been shut down for a while without giving a reason and then resume counting when the fix is in and tell people nothing to see here when the democrat magically picks up a lot of votes and wins by the morning.
they will run out of ‘publican ballots.
I just sent it my vote for Smiley and against all the tax increases.
Ditto!
What happened to Washington? Where are the cowboys, hunters, and farmers? It used to be like Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and the Dakotas. I don’t reckon I’ll be going back for a while.
It was ruined by CA citizens moving here. And we have tons of Communist legislators on the west side of the Cascades.
And sadly, Mark, Montana got ruined by said Californians some 30 years ago. They figured out Communism did not work in their own state, fled, and decided to “try it again” in a state that no one invited them to. It really is quite disgusting.
wrong again…sadly cali was ruined by Regan amnesty that let in 3-7 million illegals to vote/pop out kids who vote dnc!
then the DNc with some GOP help left the door wide open for 10 to 25 million more to show up and for the last 4 decades pop out kids that in 18 short years can vote….DNC!
just google ‘Feinstein hating illegal aliens’ and in 1993 she hated illegals then suddenly flipped for more votes!??
You are not wrong there, Bobo. But you are wrong in that the idiot California (the liberal ones) ruined Montana. Also, it was Reagan that gave the vaccine industry 100% immunity (1986), so he really f**ed up there, as well.
Mark, the Californians started the process. Microsoft and Amazon bring in many employees from the northeast. They live in the towers downtown and in the Lake Union area. I see far too many NY, NJ, MA & CT license plates. These people left good jobs for higher paying ones here in Seattle. They did not leave the NE for freedom. Hence, they vote to raise our taxes and restrict our rights.
I wish Amazon had opened HQ2 in NYC.
i used to photograph real estate in the Puget’s S
ound region back in the Nineties. I was astounded athow quickly, and for HOW MUCH< rural real estate actually sold for around here. Sometimes half again or twice what I would have expected. Then I found out… my boss who ran the book knew. Most of those sales were to folks fleeing southern Califpornia. They'd sell off their dingbat tract houses on city lots, just like the ones we bought when I was a kid for ten or twelve thuosand new. They were getting for or five or seven hundred thousand for those dumps.. coming up here, cashing out on a five acre piece with a small horse barn, a two story 3000sf home maybe twenty years old. No mortgage, buy two new cars, put the rest into stocks or the bank, and live off the interest. Don't even have to work.
Those who SOLD those places to the California transplants shuffld off to Montan, Idaho, WYoming, Colorado….. Arizona, Texas New Mexico….
I was in Spokane for a week back in 2019 for the National Convention of the Vietnam Veterans of America. I actually liked Spokane. So much that I might want to visit there again sometime. Or, maybe Idaho.
I’d recommend Idaho. It’s pretty much the same climate as Spokane, but you wouldn’t have Seattle’s boot on your neck.
Always nice when someone gets to rebut Democratic Party talking points about guns, gun control and the CDC in a face to face debate rather than in a blog or news article after the fact that the ones you want to persuade won’t read. It is impactful, especially when the proponent of the lies have no come back.
“The fact that the Seattle Times did not say that their endorsed candidate Patty Murray won the debate shows that even they acknowledge that Tiffany Smiley cleaned her clock”
So Murray won and they just didn’t say it?
Just the thought of their candidate losing left a bad taste in their mouth. Having to openly admit their candidate losing the debate would cause them to vomit again.
Murray is an ugly party stooge……probably get re-elected, but you can always hope for better. Democrats want a nation of mass chaos with thieves & goons running around loose with impunity.
I knew, 8 paragraphs in, who wrote this article. I do not trust these NSSF fucks. It’s more of a gut feeling, which I’m usually correct on, but I’m feeling pretty confident with how they write and how they talk that they’ll be the next NRA. And by that I mean the next ones to sell us out. Every chance in the world I’ll be wrong, but I rarely am.
They already have, many times. Red flag advocates, Enhanced NICS they path themselves on the back about publicly all the time, glad handing UBC’s, amongst quite a few others. They are not the path to freedom you seek, but the enemy within.
You might have noticed SAF, GOA, NAGR, or any other true 2A advocate group stands with them. There’s your clue. Don’t know why TTAG gives them the stump, and never brings up what they have done against the cause in any other than a positive light.
*pat*, not path…
Oh theres that “Vote Here” sign again. You know, someone is going to trip over that and sue the post office.
the modern left
and their lapdogs in the media
havent been right
or told the truth about anything
since trump came down the escalator
They both attended the same classes in college.
In particular the abcxyz studies classes.
Abcxyz. cant pronounce that, kinda like that little guy that used to fck with Superman , Mxlplxnsomthing.
“Sen. Murray might not remember the success of the FIX NICS Act because she chose not to co-sponsor the bill, despite 78 senators that did.”
Well, NICS is *NOT* fixed! If it were fixed then we would be catching more of the mentally unstable individuals buying guns and we would have much fewer issues with people that get falsely rejected. Too many people with documented mental health issues are simply ignored and bypassed. It is NOT possible for an ‘assault weapons ban’ to deal with this. Our so-called leaders refuse to fix NICS. For that reason alone, it should be scrapped.
If you truly want to keep guns out of the hands of criminals then lock them up and keep them behind bars. ANY other action is futile.
the only way to FIX NICS is to completely eliminate it. I don’t remember anything about a background check prior to GC68.
Fixing NICS is preventing it from interfering with (infringing upon) the rights of the people. There was never any possibility it would reduce anything nor was it ever intended to. Criminals do not obey the law, so laws do not affect them, except when they are actually locked behind bars.
So a guy with a knife club or fist is hardly like to engage in multile murders at the same time is he? Though with knives especially it does happen Are you saying that though Deaths by Gun Crime have reached between 20 and 25,000 a year that that’s pefectly acceptable because other form of crime kill or injure more people and have a higher score because that’s how I’d take it. I’ve yet to hear about somebody going into a school and punching ao knifing a dozen kids to death -have you??. How many MASS KNIFINGS, PUNCHINGS or CLUBBINGs
have there been in the last century for instance but in gthne USA alone there have been thoiusands of mass shootings and they are getting MORE FREQUENT and MORE DEADLY in terms of numbers every bloody year. And by the way POLICE numbers have gone up in comparison even more -for all the difference it has made or can ever make. It’s NOT the POlice who make laws and they are neither Judge nor Jury either.
I guess you don’t remember the nutjob that hacked up 20 people?
What a dope. Look up the numbers of deaths during a thousand years of the Crusades, no guns involved. Even combined with battleships and nuclear weapons, guns do not compare. You need to realize you have not just been lied to, you and millions others have been actively and deliberately brainwashed. If you could ever figure that out (doubtful), you might wish to consider the question “why?”.
Pozzum, I think that Superman nemisis dude was Maxpickledik. If you could pronounce his name he would own you. What were we talking about?
Murray has barnacles for teeth. What an ugly Commie hag.
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