Gun club lawsuit sure smells like a vendetta

Kitsap County Prosecutor Russ Hauge says his current lawsuit against a Seabeck gun club has nothing to do with politics and “couldn’t have come at a worse time.”

Here’s hoping he’s right on both counts.

Just over six weeks before county residents were due to vote in the first contested race for prosecutor since 1994, Hauge last week filed court documents intended to shut down the Kitsap Rifle and Revolver Club based on a number of alleged safety and land-use violations.

Hauge insists his actions were prompted solely by the introduction of compelling new evidence rather than timed to make a splash in time for election day.

Moreover, it’s mere happenstance — he claims — that the operator of the club, Marcus Carter, was charged by Hauge’s office in 1999 with possessing an illegal automatic weapon.

That the case has been dismissed three times in three separate courtrooms hasn’t prevented Hauge from keeping the case open for future appeals, though.

Hauge denies the new lawsuit isn’t a vendetta against someone who’s repeatedly thwarted him.

But if it isn’t, it’ll do until one comes along.

Then, too, there’s the convenient fact that Hauge’s election opponent, Bruce Danielson, is a member of the gun club.

Will these remarkable coincidences never end?

Noting that he is an occasional recreational firearm enthusiast himself, Hauge assures his constituents that, “I have no personal desire to see the club shut down.”

Maybe not, but you get the idea he probably wouldn’t mind looking like he did — at least for a few more weeks.

However this latest lawsuit turns out — and since the public isn’t yet privy to the new evidence that allegedly occasioned it, there’s no way to make predictions — all we can hope is that the voters have all the information they need about it one way or the other before they decide whether or not Hauge deserves their support for another four years.

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