So what about the economy in Federal Way? According to a book I am reading, there is an upper-class in America that is totally different than anyone most of us have ever met. These new upper-class folks are people that usually went to the right schools and come from families where both parents also went to the right schools. Just getting into their schools requires an IQ that is higher than the IQ of other good universities.

According to Charles Murray, this was not the case when Baby-Boomers like me were growing up. In fact, until recently, many successful people were pretty much like the rest of us. They might have lived in a bigger home but they were never obsessed about getting into the right schools. The experiences and values of the rich were similar to those of most other Americans.

“COMING APART” shows how certain super zip codes contain high percentages of residents earning more than 95% of other Americans. Seattle has a few zip codes like that and so do several other places in the country. The people that live in such places are usually involved with professions in the upper levels of media, law, finance, journalism and the world of academics. The rest of the nation is just trying to maintain a modicum of what we used to enjoy while many communities are sinking fast!

Many of the New Upper-Class have never been to a Kiwanis or a Rotary meeting. Their kids go to private schools so they never get involved with local schools. Some of them live in super zip codes in places like Chicago or Seattle. But the majority of the elite five percent folks live in just four metropolitan areas: New York City, Washington, DC, San Francisco and LA.

The Big Four contain conglomerates of super zip codes in which many square miles of the super affluent have developed a culture that is not even recognized by most Americans. In other words, I might not get my grits served at Denny’s without driving several miles in certain parts of Northern Virginia or Maryland just outside of DC. The upper 5% in the Big Four metropolitan areas vote for solidly Progressive or even extremely Liberal congressional candidates. Elites in smaller super-zips, on the other hand, tend to be Conservative and Liberal and everything in between.

Author Charles Murray is a Libertarian and refrains from making any judgments about the upper 5%. He simply reports that we cannot understand emerging cultural trends without understanding the fact thata new culture is emerging within certain areas containing residents that exert the most influence on media, government and public opinion.

Washington, DC and its suburbs contain the biggest enclave of super zip codes. These upper-class zip codes are surrounded by other areas where the residents are almost as affluent as the upper five-percent. You may well be asking, “So what?” The rich will always be with us, right?

The denizens of the super zips tend to stay married more than the other people, work longer hours and raise kids that tend to be creative. They are decent people but just don’t relate to things that are accepted by most Americans. Nevertheless, our American culture often seems to be coming apart because of the fundamental lack of understanding that much of the New Upper-Class demonstrates concerning how the rest of us live and think.

It is of utmost importance to understand how the rest of us are being shaped by this new culture that has barely even been identified. Much of what is considered by the rest of us to be valuable and right is compromised or even negated by the opinions and cultural milieu of the politically correct elite! The cultural core of the New Upper-Class are the families that live in close proximity to the East and West Coast quadrants where political opinions are shaped and where the levers of the media and financial machinery are located.

Most members of the New Upper-Class have never known an Evangelical Christian. They listen to NPR and have little experience of anything that has to do with the military or law enforcement other than to occasionally rub elbows with a few high ranking officers or other government officials.

I hardly know anyone in Federal Way that meets Murray’s description of the New Upper-Class. But I meet many people that seem to have recognized that the values of the upper-class are the key to being accepted as one of the right kind of people- the people that get elected to office or promoted in corporate environments.

Upper-Class people have often never set foot in a factory or worked at a job that made them feel physical pain when they climb into bed at night. They often think of manufacturing as something far below the world of abstract thinking, analysis and creativity. Shooting guns, hunting and fishing may even seem distasteful to the Upper-Class.

Many have never even shot a gun and some of the men would be embarrassed to admit how unnerved they get at the very thought of handling firearms. No wonder they seem disinterested at the thought of pistol training and self-defense for everyday working people. Just for law enforcement, right?

But Federal Way and most of Western Washington outside of Seattle is full of people that are familiar with handling weapons- possibly because we are located so close to JBLM. Our Washington State Constitution and other state laws reinforce our commitment to self-defense:

SECTION 24 RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS. The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state, shall not be impaired, but nothing in this section shall be construed as authorizing individuals or corporations to organize, maintain or employ an armed body of men.

Federal Way is in a transition that may determine whether we thrive or become a bedroom community for the new under-class. Ironically, the demographics of Federal Way are such that the quickest way of sinking into despair may be to follow the nostrums of the elite cadres dwelling in places like Manhattan, Beverly Hills or Palo Alto.

The good news is that there now seem to be at least two developers that are prepared to build gun ranges in Federal Way. A new range is likely to be under construction very soon. There is also likely to be at least one new gun store in Federal Way in the very near future.

Our business community should welcome this news and expect to see shooting competitions, schools for armed citizens and businesses that cater to shooters and law enforcement as a result of what a few local entrepreneurs have planned.

Please plan to attend a special program announced by the Armed Defense Training Association for May 3rd at 6:30 PM. We will hold the free public meeting at Genesis Realty, 32014-32nd Avenue South in Federal Way just off of 320th on the opposite side of I-5 from the Commons Mall. Our speaker will be FWPD Commander Kyle Sumpter, our local Top Shot contestant.

Commander Sumpter is responsible for FWPD firearms training and he will tell us about his experience competing on Top Shot. More details about the range plans should soon be available and it will be interesting to ask Commander Sumpter how a new Federal Way shooting range may impact FWPD training activities.

Anti-gun groups and politicians regularly exploit accidents involving children and guns. For example, anti-gun state Senator Adam Kline (D-37) and two other state Senators were primed and ready to propose new legislation (SB 6628)immediately following the incident in which a nine-year old boy recently brought a gun to a Bremerton elementary school. The gun accidentally discharged resulting in another student suffering serious gunshot wounds. Saul Alinsky was the Chicago radical that urged his fellow Socialists to exploit every crisis in order to advance the cause of total government control.

Unfortunately, subsequent events have transpired since the tragedy in Bremerton that seem to indicate that parents are leaving guns around where their kids can find them. While people all over the state were still discussing the Bremerton school incident, an off-duty Marysville police Officer parked his van near Stanwood City Hall. The officer’s son, left alone in the vehicle, found the officer’s gun in the glove compartment and shot his 7-year-old sister. The girl died from her injuries. So much for the idea that law enforcement officers are more trustworthy when it comes to firearms responsibility!

To make things worse, a 3-year-old boy fatally shot himself with a gun he found in the family car while his family stopped for gas in Tacoma. The mom’s boyfriend put a pistol under the seat of the car and got out to pump gas while the mom went into the convenience store, leaving the boy and his baby sister in the car. The boy climbed out of his child seat, fished out the gun from under the seat and shot himself in the head.

Whenever episodes of gun mayhem get play in the media, Sen. Kline usually finds his way into the news. In the past, he has proposed new state laws prohibiting certain kinds of rifles that he thinks are too much like military weapons. Despite the fact that the Founding Fathers exhorted Americans that militarily useful weapons were the subject of the Second Amendment, Adam Kline wants to ban guns that seem scary; i.e., most guns- if the truth be known.

Kline’s newly proposed SB 6628 would now provide new language to the existing RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT statute making it a crime to let a child obtain access to a loaded firearm. The trouble is that prosecutors already utilize Washington State’s RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT statute to prosecute folks that leave guns in places where children are likely to get hold of them. The “new” provision contains no new penalties and is apparently window dressing to make Kline look like he is doing something about a problem that may not even exist.

While fatal firearm accidents are at an all-time low, poisoning, suffocation and choking on small objects cause many more accidental deaths to children than firearms. In fact, about one accidental firearm death of a child each year is typical in our state, according to state health statistics gathered between 2007 and 2010.

The biggest question about the recent spate of gun accidents is why folks obtain concealed pistol licenses and then leave their guns behind when going about in public. That one time that you are outside your vehicle pumping gas could just be the time that you need the weapon.

But even if you never need to protect yourself or your family, the best way to keep a pistol out of reach of children is to have it on your person. Otherwise, it should be unloaded and properly stored.

A Seattle anti-gun advocacy group is placing signs on buses to persuade Seattle residents and commuters that gun ownership is more dangerous to family members or loved ones than it will be to a predatory criminal. The Washington State Supreme Court has consistently championed firearms rights and the right to self-defense is deeply engrained in our state’s laws, including numerous case law precedents. Adam Kline, on the other hand, is reportedly a former radical and still seems to favor governmental solutions over individual responsibility.

I am constantly amazed when I hear the children of the Sixties railing against gun ownership. These are often the very folks that went around U.S. campuses inveighing against capitalism and chanting, “All political power comes from the barrel of a gun!” Chairman Mao, the tyrant that cheerfully murdered over 60 million of his fellow Chinese citizens, coined that catchy little dictum.

After he marched across China and took control, the first thing Mao did was ban guns, depriving the people under his control from possessing the means to defend themselves against numerous Maoist purges. But, notwithstanding the fact that all tyrants ban possession of firearms by their own citizens, lock up your guns when you are not using them! And keep firearms out of the hands of unsupervised children.

The Seattle Black Panther Party, founded in 1968, was an armed defense group that holds a controversial record in modern American history. The Seattle Black Panthers was the first BPP chapter formed outside California. The Black Panthers based its armed defense for the black community on an understanding of the U.S. Constitution that sometimes led to violent encounters with law enforcement. Nevertheless, the Seattle Panthers avoided the shootouts with police that were often associated with Panthers who also were known for providing lunches to school kids and other worthwhile community service.

On one occasion, several Black Panthers grabbed their guns and drove to Rainier Beach. The Panthers walked into Seattle’s Rainier Beach High School with their weapons and told the principal that he needed to start protecting Black students from being harassed or the Panthers would return. The police arrived but the Panthers left with no further problems.

In 1967, thirty Oakland Black Panthers, concerned that the California state legislature was about to outlaw the public display of guns, had appeared in full paramilitary regalia in front of the capital building- all fully armed! The fact that they were arrested for conspiracy to disturb the peace did not deter the Seattle Panthers.

After the incident at the Rainier Beach High, Seattle Mayor, J.D. Braman pushed to have a gun law passed that would put restrictions upon firearms in the city. In February, 1969, legislators in Olympia were also passing a new law that would make it a gross misdemeanor to exhibit firearms or other weapons in a manner manifesting intent to intimidate others. The Panthers stood on the capitol steps with rifles and shotguns to protest the pending gun legislation. Washington State Patrol officers just told the Panthers to put the guns away. The Panthers complied and no arrests resulted because no laws had been broken.

Some legislators and citizens reacted by proclaiming that the Panthers had demonstrated “open and active anarchy and rebellion.” Governor Evans promoted restraint during the incident and rebuked Lieutenant Governor Cherberg for calling in the state patrol during the Governor’s absence. The Bellevue High School even invited the Panthers to come to a Civics class where the Panthers were able to explain their philosophy of self-defense to the students.

The law enacted at that time by the Washington State Legislature- still in effect- prohibits display of a weapon in “a manner, under circumstances, and at a time and place that either manifests an intent to intimidate another or that warrants alarm for the safety of other persons.”

The legislature apparently included the language pertaining to display that “warrants alarm for the safety of other persons” in order to discourage further displays of armed force at the state capitol. Lawyers have challenged that language for being vague and arbitrary. In the 1994 case of STATE V. SPENCER, the Washington courts upheld a conviction under RCW 9.41.270 when a man with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder and a loaded magazine walked through a residential area just North of Federal Way with his head down avoiding eye contact.

Like the quotation that came out of one famous U.S. Supreme Court obscenity case- the justices knew obscenity when they saw it- the judges in Washington state seemed to know display warranting alarm when they saw it and held that Spencer had unlawfully displayed his weapon. But every time there is a new attempt to ban certain firearms, some gun advocates come openly armed to the Capitol Building in Olympia. The Washington State Patrol still acknowledges the citizens’ First Amendment and Second Amendment rights and refuses to harass armed citizens sitting and standing in the hearing rooms and corridors of our state legislature. Maybe we can thank the Black Panthers for paving the way!