Washington I-1639: Dumbest Gun Control Initiative Ever

1997 ballot initiative writers: Let's put together a huge intrusive ballot initiative which will severely impact gun culture in Washington state if it passes. But even if it doesn't, it is so extreme it will kill gun control efforts in the state for 20 years.

2018 ballot initiative writers: Hold my beer.

I moved to Washington state in 1997, just in time to join the fight against I-676. 676 tried to enact a handgun licensing scheme which would have drastically impacted the gun culture of Washington state. As a previous blog post noted (link), Washington state is a politically moderate but VERY gun friendly state. I moved here in the expectation that I-676 would fail and it did, losing by a 71% to 29% margin.

21 years later, an even more obnoxious gun control initiative is on the ballot. As in 1997, proponents are trying to sell the restrictions in this initiative as "modest" and "not intrusive". And again in 2018, we can see through their dissembling.

Typical signature gatherers for this initiative. Not at all deceptive. Look away

I-1639 is an incompetently written initiative, apparently created by randomly cutting and pasting from a handful of legislation REJECTED by a Democrat-controlled legislature this year. It was promoted by Washington's so-called "Attorney General," who smugly admits that he spends a lot of his time at work looking for flimsy reasons to sue the Federal government....apparently because his budget is excessive and he doesn't work for the state or something? The format of I-1639 is so blatantly illegal that a judge in Thurston County removed it from the ballot. Unfortunately, the state Supreme Court decided that its job is not to adjudicate the law and put it back on the ballot.

Here's a news flash, guys: maintaining respect for the rule of law and its impartiality is actually pretty damn important. You have compromised that severely.

Let's look at all the problems with this bloated, incoherent initiative:

It classifies ALL semi-auto rifles as "assault weapons", rendering them susceptible to future legislative attacks. Every single rifle. That will get the hunting crowd's attention, especially when they go to buy a Browning BAR or pedestrian .22 and there's a 10 business day waiting period.

OK, now say you're a hunter concerned about being made to wait two weeks to take possession of a rifle, for no good reason. You might think that your Concealed Pistol License might allow you to bypass the waiting period, like it does for handgun purchases. No such luck.

Here's one subtle and very ugly bit that isn't being talked about very much. I-1639 also requires that you complete an approved safety class before you can buy that hunting rifle. However, the content and availability of that course are not spelled out in the initiative. It could take months or even over a year for the courses to be approved and made available. So there could be an indeterminately long complete ban on the sale of ALL semi-auto rifles throughout the state.

Does that still sound like a moderate law to you?

Then there's the part where buying that rifle means that the state can invade your health privacy for the rest of your life. When I call older folks, that REALLY gets their attention. It also worries a lot of people who have been treated for PTSD or depression.

Then there's the small matter of denying 18-20 year olds who may be living on their own the right to effective self defense weapons. Remember that they already can't buy handguns.

The initiative purports to enact safe storage requirements. That means that either you will be expected to keep your gun locked up at all times (and therefore useless for purposes of self defense) or be held criminally responsible if Joe Recidivist Felon steals your gun and uses it in a crime.

And what is the whole alleged point to this incoherent jumble of bad ideas? Controlling "assault weapons", which are so rarely used to commit violent crimes (link) that people with knives are more of a threat to you. Or people with hands and feet.  

Gun owners realize how toxic this initiative is and oppose it. The gun community hasn't been this motivated and pissed off since 1997.

The large state law enforcement organizations all oppose this initiative:
Washington State Patrol Troopers Association
Washington State Sheriff’s Association
Washington Council of Police & Sheriffs
Washington State Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors Association

I think I-1639's advocates have bitten off a lot more than they can chew.

Democratic "leadership" in Washington state shows why party is in decline: Dishonesty, Arrogance

A few months after I moved to Washington state in 1997, the state election included an initiative which would have required that all handgun owners in the state obtain a handgun license or face felony charges (for continuing to own a firearm they had owned responsibly for decades). Despite predictions that it would pass easily, the measure lost by 71%. A gun control supporter at the time lamented that it had set gun control back 20 years because it contained such blatant overreach.

Now it's 20 years later and the gun control lobby is pushing bills which could end up setting their efforts back by another 20 years.

Grandstanding Attorney General Bob Ferguson has proposed restrictions which form the basis of two separate bills concerning so-called "assault weapons". Should these bills fail, as they are expected to do, there is already talk about them being formed into a ballot initiative for 2018.

I have written in a previous blog post why such restrictions are absolutely foolhardy:

• Rifles are not used often for murder. They are used to kill substantially less people annually than are killed by people with their bare hands...or other common weapons such as knives or blunt objects like baseball bats
  
• These rifles are very commonly owned, undoubtedly in the hundreds of thousands in the state and we have see in other states that complying would lead to confiscation (as in California). Compliance would be low, leading to massive disrespect for the law. (Hint: if you want to discourage ownership of a type of gun, proposing a ban is NOT the way to do so)
  
• Egregious restrictions like these have been a significant factor in Democratic party losses nationwide

The more obnoxious version of Ferguson's legislation, HB 1387 would mandate licensing to own "assault weapons", with annual renewal required. The consequences of this would be simply stunning: gross overreach attempting to turn Washington state (which is politically moderate but VERY gun friendly) into a state with worse gun control laws than any other state in the West, including California.

I referenced I676 and the consequences to the gun control lobby of its arrogant overreach earlier. But perhaps even more disturbing is the willingness, nay, eagerness of gun control proponents to utter statements that are blatantly dishonest...and the media's tendency to report those statements without even the pretense of fact checking.

Take for example the Seattle Times and their witless reporting of politicians pushing for these gun control bills here.

Laurie Jinkins of Tacoma opined:

“We have a lot of data now with mass shootings that assault weapons hurt and kill a lot more people and do it a lot faster,” she said. “We’re trying to make sure that these kinds of weapons stay out of the hands of dangerous people”

However, the FBI Uniform Crime Report consistently shows rifles as uncommon crime weapons, used in very few murders. And "mass shooting" statistics are being manipulated to inflate numbers by counting any situation where more than one person as shot.

Deputy prosecuting attorney Adam Cornell, told the group his worst day out of the 15 years working in Snohomish County was when he arrived at the scene where a 19-year-old, Allen C. Ivanov, shot and killed three of his former high school classmates at a house party in Mukilteo last year. 

Authorities say Ivanov opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle he had just purchased. Ivanov pleaded guilty and has been sentenced to life in prison. 

“That shooting, those murders,” he paused and said, “occurred in a span of less than 35 seconds … Assault weapons are the most efficient killers of people that we have in our communities.”

While that was an awful crime, it could have easily been committed with a 5 shot revolver. Grandstanding because a scary looking rifle was used is simply idiotic.

However the most awful part of this article could easily be this sentence:

Inslee said there’s a loophole in the state’s law that doesn’t require background checks for assault weapons.

Think about that for a moment. The governor of Washington state stated in the mainstream media that Washington state doesn't have a background check for these rifles. And the Seattle Times reported that statement AS FACT.

In point of fact, all firearms sold through dealers in Washington state require a Federal NICS background check. And since I594 passed, ALL firearms purchases are required to go through a dealer.

Governor Inslee and Attorney General Ferguson: are you actually so low as to attack a civil liberty through rank dishonesty or are you actually this ignorant of existing law?

Letter to the Seattle Times about gun legislation

I am writing to provide some feedback about your opinion columns
about gun control this weekend, as well as the general tone of the
discussion. For your information, I am a moderate liberal Democrat in
most respects who also happens to be an NRA Life Member; I believe
that makes me a consistent liberal.

In general, I find the idea of firearms "discussion" in this country to be
an unfortunate oxymoron. Firearms owners possess the technical acumen
for real debate and a first person knowledge of the issues. Most gun control
advocates seem to fall more into the "guns are icky and we want all the
controls we can get" camp. Attempts to rebrand "gun control" to "gun safety"
will only have any veracity when the control side provides more data than
the equivalent of sex ed composed solely of "abstinence" instruction.
The firearms community reduced the fatal gun accident rate from 2500/year
around 1970 to about 600/year now, mostly through OUR initiative and
without significant legal requirements.

To reiterate and rephrase: we don't want to be talked at by those with no
knowledge any more than women wanted to be talked down to be
anti-choice extremists last year.

Having lived in 4 states and experienced a variety of gun controls first
hand, including their unintended consequences, I'd like to respond to
some editorials by Danny Westneat and Jenny Durkan in the Time,
this weekend.

I was most impressed by Danny Westneat's comments and I believe
that he and my representative Hope have a sincere interest in finding
intelligent discussion points. Where this breaks down is if HB 1588 includes
a requirement to record firearm type and serial numbers. A carefully
defined background check can be an excellent idea but legislation which
results in full firearms registration is unacceptable. That reading of
1588 would put it on par with California's requirement that records all
firearms transactions. This is not so much in regard to gun show transactions
as to private purchases between individuals.

An approach which could be much more acceptable to the firearms
community would be something like Iowa's pistol purchase permit,
which I experienced in the mid 1990s. It included a background check
good for a year or two pf purchases. A background check meets the
stated goals of Rep Hope, without venturing into firearms registration
territory. Another equivalent would be to exempt firearms purchases where
the purchaser possesses a valid WA state concealed pistol license.
I have personally only sold firearms to persons possessing a valid CPL,
which I believe meets my responsibility as a gun owner squarely.

I am frankly disappointed with Jenny Durkan's attempt to ingratiate
herself with the firearms community by saying "I grew up with shotguns"
and then have her go on to urge a ban on so-called "assault weapons". If Ms
Durkan grew up with guns, surely she knows that these firearms are
functionally equivalent to hunting firearms. The idea of banning rifles which are
used to kill less people than blunt objects and half the people killed with
hands and feet is patently ridiculous.

The US will never have its gun culture destroyed in the way that other
countries have. There are many millions of handguns in private hands
and tens of millions of semi-automatic rifles and normal capacity magazines
for them as well. The djinn is out of the bottle but gun rights advocates share
your concern in reducing violence.  Why not ask for our ideas?

If you ask us how instead of "splaining" to us what controls we have to
accept, we can work together to improve the situation. But we don't have
to accept any bad idea you come up with and we won't. Something like
a hundred thousand gun owners took the time to show up and protest
peacefully for our rights in state capitols around the country, two weeks
ago. We're not going anywhere.