Gun rights advocates taking issue with lack of lockboxes

WENATCHEE – In the last three weeks, two men in two separate north-central Washington counties walked into their courthouses and insisted on a lockbox to secure their weapons.

Neither got the lockbox they requested, but both got what they were after: recorded confrontations with tense security officers and an escort out of the courthouses, which they say demonstrates a lack of government accountability.

Authorities say the exchanges would have been far different had the men come in with a courteous request to secure their weapons while they did business in restricted areas of the courthouses.

“It’s all in the approach,” said Elgin Shaw, Chelan County Courthouse campus security deputy. Instead of a lockbox, he said, “They got a great video for their cause.”

The two men are Gavin Seim, of Ephrata, Washington, a Republican candidate running to replace Doc Hastings in the U.S. Congress, and Phil Bentz, of Wenatchee, a photographer who said he previously worked as a juvenile corrections officer in Yakima and served in Iraq with Washington’s Army National Guard.

Both say they are gun rights advocates and that they wanted to bring attention to the lack of lockboxes at county courthouses. Washington state law requires counties and cities to provide in the same building a locked box for weapons or a designated official who can hold the weapon while the owner visits courtrooms or other areas where weapons are not allowed.

Seim shot a recording of his exchange with a security guard and then Ephrata police at the Grant County Courthouse on May 22. The guard first told him to secure his weapon in his car or at the sheriff’s office across the street. When Seim continued to insist on access to a lockbox, Ephrata police were called, and he was patted down to make sure he didn’t have a weapon and later escorted from the building.

Twelve days later, on June 3, Bentz showed up at the Chelan County Courthouse for jury duty and asked for a lockbox to secure his weapon. Security guards told him he could secure it in his car. They eventually escorted him out of the building when he would not tell them whether he had a weapon but continued to request a lockbox.

Bentz said he knows Seim and supports his candidacy, and saw his recorded exchange with Ephrata police. He had already been thinking about raising the issue at the Chelan County Courthouse. He said he was trying to exercise his right to have his weapon with him until he goes into a restricted area. “The government is basically saying, ‘You can’t have a weapon beyond this point.’ They’re disarming you, and since I’m in public and could potentially have to defend myself, there needs to be a way I can secure it,” he said.

Bentz said he learned by experience that he may need to defend himself at any time. Two years ago, he was with his father in Lowe’s lumberyard on Walla Walla Avenue in Wenatchee when a man pulled a knife on them. Bentz pulled out his gun, but did not fire it. The man with the knife was arrested and later convicted of harassment. “That showed me it can happen anywhere. It solidified my decision to always protect myself,” he said.

Not long after Seim’s encounter, Grant County commissioners had lockboxes installed in the courthouse lobby and in the district court building in Moses Lake. “The prosecuting attorney said we were not up to snuff on it, so we took care of it,” said Commissioner Richard Stevens.