The new law asserts that “assault weapons” are not used for self-defense.
House Bill 1240 bans the sale of these semiautomatic firearms in Washington as well as their import into the state. Many gun shop owners believe they will be forced out of business by the overreaching statute. They have 90 days to sell their inventory to out-of-state buyers.
The gun control package, spearheaded by Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson, went beyond banning the manufacture, sale, or import of these firearms. It also mandated safety training for gun buyers, a 10-day waiting period for weapons purchases, and a requirement that gun manufacturers and dealers take “reasonable steps” to ensure firearms are not possessed by “dangerous individuals.”
The safety training requirement begins Jan. 1, 2024, but the ban on “assault weapons” is immediate.
People who currently own these semiautomatic rifles are allowed to keep them, but conversion kits and parts used to assemble the weapons are banned. In other words, if a key component breaks, a replacement part may not be purchased locally.
SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb noted “the State has enacted a flat prohibition on the manufacture, sale, import and distribution of many types of firearms, inaccurately labeled as ‘assault weapons,’ which are owned by millions of ordinary citizens across the country.”
Gottlieb noted that Washington “criminalized a common and important means of self-defense, the modern semiautomatic rifle.”
He added that political leaders put their personal agendas before constitutional rights. The blanket ban, he said, does not address the very real concern of violent criminals who abuse already existing gun laws.
SAF has two other legal challenges to Washington gun laws in the works. One is over the so-called “high capacity” magazine ban and the other opposes the prohibition on the sale of semiautomatic rifles to young adults.
Adam Kraut, the Second Amendment advocacy group’s executive director, credited “hysteria” fomented by the legislation’s supporters paired with the “false characterization of the banned firearms as ‘weapons of war.’” He said the guns targeted by the law are merely ordinary semiautomatic rifles, and their distinguishing features exist to make them safer.
Furthermore, they do not fit the Supreme Court-instituted guidelines of “unusual and dangerous.”
The group promised to take the case up to the high court if necessary.
The effects of the new law for gun shop owners and ordinary citizens of Washington are far reaching. Bruce Smith, manager of Surplus Ammo and Arms in Tacoma, told Fox News that “they have an agenda, and that agenda is to get rid of guns. And eventually, all guns.”
The entrepreneur recalled that Washington at one point was one of the premier states for gun rights in the nation. However, the past several years saw legislators whittle away at gun rights until it reached this point.
“If this law goes into effect and the judge doesn’t throw it out,” Smith declared, “we will by far be the worst state in the country for firearms rights.”
Smith further accused Washington’s political leaders of cherry-picking the Constitution for parts they like while discarding those they disagree with. “What they’ve decided is that they can change [gun rights] locally, knowing that…it will get tied up in federal court for years, if not forever.”
According to the Violence Project, Washington has had eight “mass shootings” since 1966, a majority of which involved handguns. A mass shooting is defined as an incident in which four or more victims besides the shooter are killed in a public area.
