The foes of individual liberty have finally figured out that restrictions on adults are hard to implements, so they try to go after kids or those new to the shooting sports. The obstacles in the path of teaching gun safety and self-defense skills are a re-hash of the old laws which prohibited training Negroes in the use of gun or sword. Learn what I594 wrought and why it should be repealed.
As an aside, the conservative side isn’t above trying to restrict dissemination of knowledge either. I designate gun control as the more pressing problem because it would easier to face hordes of right-winders with a rifle in hand than to face hordes of left-wingers with nothing but a condom for a weapon.
Applause, Oleg. Well done. This issue needed your photographic genius to popularize the opposition. I wish the NRA and others could have beaten I-594 down, but maybe it can happen soon. I don’t live there, but have folks I care about who do.
I wish NRA had been more supportive. We were left out in the cold on this one.
I can’t help thinking that NRA is totally happy with it (and I’m an endowment life member) because it’s going to lead to more of us getting more training and certifications just to exercise our Constitutional rights. Just more gentrification of RKBA as a way to squeeze it out entirely. How many people can afford to give so much time, energy, money, thought, and concern to an ever-shifting panoply of bad law designed to turn the law abiding into criminals because it’s the only way to conduct the culture war against PoTG?
Oleg, you can e-mail me for details on local thinking on response. I don’t want to put it here publicly because I don’t want the gun controlls reading this blog to get any intelligence that way.
I stumbled upon this little bit of info after the measure passed. This is in my eyes the biggest flaw/ biggest laugh with 594. This measure does, in my eyes, nothing that the public thought they wanted. This measure makes problems for flare guns, construction tools, and fireworks.
What if I told you….. You can sell a gun to ANYONE in the state of Washington at any time. Now, and into 2015+? Yes, it is legal to sell a gun to anyone…… As long as you’re on a Indian reservation. If there was a gun show on an Indian reservation, background checks are NOT required by 594.
There is an I594 protest-gathering slated for Saturday, Dec. 13 , in Olympia at 11:00 AM
When I was in school we had gun clubs that taught gun safety…which is what the founders intended….
“To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole bod of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.”
~ Richard Henry Lee – American Statesman, 1788 ~
“Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence…..to ensure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable….the very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference….they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.”
~ George Washington – First President of the United States ~
Except the ballot initiative says The measure would establish a number of exceptions to the background check requirement. A background check would not be required to transfer a firearm by gift between family members. [and] Certain other temporary transfers of a firearm would also not require a background check. These include temporary transfers between spouses, and temporary transfers for use at a shooting range, in a competition, or for performances. A temporary transfer to a person under age eighteen for hunting, sporting, or education would not require a background check. Other temporary transfers for lawful hunting also would not require a background check.
The devil is in the details. You can let you 15 year old shoot your rifle at an official range but not a 20 year old neighbor at a farm range…and so on.
Oleg, I think a better example to give an idea of how ridiculous the law is would be that you can let your 17yr old child shoot your firearms at a farm range, but you can not let your 18yr old child do the same.
I will make a note of this in the next infographic.
That’s an inaccurate oversimplification of the actual law.
The exemption for ranges only applies if the temporary transfer is at an established, recognized range where the firearm is kept at all times. That’s not poor wording, they could have as easily written “for the duration of the temporary transfer”, but they did not. Such wording is on other exemptions, but not this one.
The law as written only effectively exempts temporary transfers at established ranges where you either permanently store the firearm you use there (how many of those even exist?), or where you’re shooting a rental gun owned by the range. Anywhere or anything else (allowing your 18-year-old child, or parent, or the guy in the lane next to you, or the instructor in your firearms safety class, to handle your carry firearm or another firearm brought from home) requires a background check with a fee and up-to-ten-day waiting period. And the return of the firearm to the owner at the end of the temporary transfer is not exempt, so under the law as written you would also need a background check, fee and up-to-ten-day waiting period to return it at the end of the temporary transfer.
Read the actual text of the initiative. http://sos.wa.gov/_assets/elections/initiatives/FinalText_483.pdf
594 has an exemption for temporary transfers at performances, but not for basic training. I guess the authors feel entertainment is more important than safety.
Chris, I think part of the issue is that the “summary” was a pack of lies, and people relied on the summary rather than the actual words. As I understand it, the WA ballot process does not require the summary to be an honest description of the measure.
So what is a “family member”?
If I choose not to marry, and have a life partner–or say I have two life partners as a polyamorous person, and both partners have children–are they “family members”? Are my partners?
Are my partner’s or partners’ kids by their previous marriages “family members”?
What about their family members–their aunts, uncles, cousins, and their partners?
What about my ex-husband, with whom I parted on good terms and still consider a relation, albeit not in the ultra-conservative definition of those who support I-594?
What about the farmer who raises my meat? I consider him and his wife family members. Do you?
My plumber came out the night before Thanksgiving two years ago when something awful happened on that front–he fixed it pronto and let me and my FAMILY celebrate and give thanks. I consider him part of my family.
The teacher who saved my life when I was in my teens–is he a “family member”???
Who gets to define FAMILY MEMBERS in the new “progressive” (fascist) world order you refer to?
You are nattering on about something that is a lie. The entire point of I-594 was to allow government intervention into the most private moments of an individual’s and family’s life. The entire point is to make people mistrust each other, and give snoops and malefactors incentive to pick on their neighbors.
Yes. The whole point of I-594 was to support criminals and trample law abiding citizens. Nothing less. That’s what Bloomberg is all about.
Reading the statute here (PDF) I see:
“(4) This section does not apply to:
(a) A transfer between immediate family members, which for this
subsection shall be limited to spouses, domestic partners, parents,
children, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, first
cousins, aunts, and uncles, that is a bona fide gift;” – regardless of where the transfer occurs
” A temporary transfer of possession of a firearm if such
transfer is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to
the person to whom the firearm is transferred” – covers the “your friend is in your house and grabs the gun because somebody’s breaking in” issue.
It seems to me that the only problem with the law is the “let my friend borrow my gun in the backyard.” Perhaps it would be better to get an amendment to the law rather than scream that the sky is falling.
A gift, n0 — but going to the range with an adult child and sharing a gun would be a criminal act. There’s plenty of other parts to I-594 that are as damaging.
No, it would not – transfers between “immediate family members” specifically including children do not require a background check. It’s right there in what I pasted.
The immediate family member exemption is only valid if it “is a bona fide gift”. A temporary transfer for a few minutes or even a week or two cannot be considered a “a bona fide gift”.
Changing an law created by initiative in Washington State requires a 2/3 majority of both houses or a two year wait. It’s not likely to happen anytime soon.
Thanks Oleg for putting your unique touch on this issue. I always been a fan of your work and you hit it on the nail of how this laws sucks. I live here in Seattle and everytime I think of this crap law my head hurts. The anti’s wanted this law to be passed so can get even more anti gun laws to be passed in the state. Storage laws is next on their agenda.
It seems that part (probably a small part) of the problem is people insisting that the thing isn’t as bad as it actually is. And then insist on quoting chapter and verse in the mistaken belief it supports their optimism.
Has anyone ever defined what a “recognized” range is? Does such a thing exist at all? Or is this another sneaky provision designed to kill ranges, by requiring them to be “recognized” but then not actually recognizing any?