Washington’s Gun Laws Didn’t Stop Mass Murderer, but May Have Kept Victims From Defending Themselves

As Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was unveiling a gun control package targeting legal gun owners that included a ban on “assault weapons” and “large capacity” magazines and claiming that those measures will stop incidents of mass violence, a madman 1,500 miles away from Minneapolis was proving just how empty the governor’s promises were. 

Four people in Gig Harbor, Washington were murdered on Tuesday morning after a man armed with a knife entered a home and began a brutal rampage. 

Authorities say the initial call came in at 8:41 a.m. as an “Order Violation in Progress,” with the PCSO stating that an adult man came to the home despite having a no-contact order against him. Deputies confirmed the order was not valid as it had not yet been served. 

Deputies obtained a copy of the order to serve the suspect, but while en route, they received an update at 9:30 a.m. that multiple witnesses were reporting the man was now stabbing people outside the home.

Witnesses said at least one of the victims was stabbed in the middle of the street in front of multiple onlookers.

“A few minutes later Pierce County Sheriff’s deputy arrived on scene and called out shots had been fired,” Officer Shelbie Boyd, the public information officer for the Pierce Co. Force Investigation Team (PCFIT), said. “We have the adult male suspect who was shot by the deputy.”

Three people were found at the scene deceased from stab wounds, while a fourth victim passed away at a hospital from the injuries sustained in the attack. The suspect, identified as a 32-year-old man, was killed by the responding deputy. Initial reports didn’t indicate the relationship between the suspect and the victims, but the News-Tribune reports that a 52-year-old woman who lived at the home had taken out two orders of protection against her son; one in 2020 and another in 2025. 

In a petition for a protection order filed Dec. 10, 2020, the woman wrote that her son “always keeps control in my house,” describing an incident where he threatened her daughter with a knife after she brought her boyfriend to the house in the 14000 block of 87th Avenue Court Northwest, east of Purdy.

Her son says that “he is a God,” she wrote.

The mother wrote in a petition for an order of protection filed April 4, 2025, that her son had been practicing “witchcraft/occult behavior” and doing rituals inside the home. She also wrote that he damaged her belongings, hurt her cat and refused to get a job.

She described an incident two days earlier when she returned home to find her house smelling strange with the cat’s tree, food and water bowls, as well as inside rugs, moved to the garage, the document said. The cat was missing.

An order of protection was granted on May 2, 2025, but at this point it’s unclear whether that was the order that was never served or if a third order of protection was issued at some point between last May and Tuesday. 

An order of protection is a piece of paper, not a suit of armor, and even if the suspect had been served there was nothing stopping him from entering the home and murdering his own family. 

In a press release, Second Amendment Foundation founder and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms chairman Alan Gottlieb noted in a press release that none of the extensive gun control laws enacted over the past few years in the state were able to prevent what he called a “horrible crime.”

“Thank heavens an armed deputy arrived to put a stop to this rampage before even more people might have been injured. Once again, a good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy with an evil heart.”

Details are still emerging in the case, but it underscores the importance of being able to act in self-defense without even a moment’s notice, and having the right tool for the job, CCRKBA noted. However, in Washington, anti-gunners have been eroding the right to keep and bear arms, which is protected by both the state and federal constitutions. Instead, they have pushed through a 10-day waiting period to buy any kind of firearm, a so-called “enhanced background check,” and waiting to take effect next year, a permit-to-purchase scheme with an expensive training requirement, which will almost certainly be challenged in court.

“Evergreen State gun prohibitionists have been gaslighting the public for too long,” Gottlieb observed, “but what happened Tuesday morning should put an end to that nonsense. Guns are not the problem, violent people are. Whether they misuse a firearm, knife, crowbar, automobiles, or some other weapon, the actions of these evil people should never be used to justify restricting the rights of law-abiding citizens.

We don’t know if anyone in the family sought to purchase a firearm in recent days, but Washington’s 10-day waiting period makes it impossible for individuals who want to protect themselves against a stalker or abuser to do so in a timely manner. Even if the suspect’s mother had reason to believe on Monday that her life was in danger, Washington’s gun laws ensured that she couldn’t purchase a firearm to defend herself and other family members for a week and a half. 

The permit-to-purchase scheme that will take effect next year will make things even worse. In order to apply for a permit an applicant must first undergo firearms training with a live-fire exercise, and after submitting their application the Washington State Police can take up to 30 days to approve or deny the permit. 

 The arbitrary 10-day waiting period has been billed as a “cooling off” period that’s ostensibly meant to give someone intent on self-harm time to reflect and change their mind. The flip side of that, though, is that someone intent on harming others can rest assured that if their intended victims don’t already own a gun they won’t be able to quickly obtain one, even if they report explicit threats against their lives to police. 

Washington Democrats aren’t likely to demand knife control in response to this mass stabbing, but they’re not going to scrap the gun control laws that subject citizens who have an urgent need to protect themselves to needless delays either. Gottlieb is right about violent people, not guns, being the problem, but this tragedy will not change the hearts and minds of the anti-2A Democrats in Olympia… or Minneapolis, for that matter. 

Editor’s Note: Second Amendment groups are doing everything they can to protect our right to armed self-defense. 

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