OLYMPIA — Washington lawmakers are citing last week’s massacre of six people at a Nashville, Tenn., parochial school as further justification for passing a sweeping package of new gun restrictions, including a ban on sales of assault weapons.
Even before the Nashville tragedy, a trio of major gun control proposals had been advancing in the Legislature. In addition to the assault weapon ban, majority Democrats have backed a 10-day waiting period for gun purchases and a measure making gunmakers and sellers potentially liable for negligent sales.
All three proposals have cleared either the state House or Senate and are awaiting final votes in the opposite chambers in the coming weeks.
The measures would build on a stack of gun laws approved by lawmakers and voters in Washington in recent years, including bans on bump stocks and high-capacity magazines, raising the age to buy semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21, and safe-storage requirements.
Even considering those past actions, this year’s bills would be a historic leap, gun control advocates say.
“If we should get all three through, it’s one of the biggest years, if not the biggest leap forward in firearms law since we’ve existed,” said Dylan O’Connor, government affairs director for the Alliance for Gun Responsibility, the Seattle-based advocacy group founded in 2013.
Opponents of the proposals argue the proposed restrictions would not stop mass shootings but would impinge on the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun owners.
“It’s a continuation of their total goal to ban and confiscate everybody’s firearms,” said Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation. He said lawmakers can’t do it in “one fell swoop” but will keep picking away at gun ownership.
Gottlieb and other opponents predict any assault weapon ban passed here will be challenged and struck down by federal courts.
“Eventually that law will go bye-bye, and the state of Washington will be paying us our legal fees,” Gottlieb said. He pointed to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that struck down a New York law limiting people from carrying firearms outside their homes — a decision widely viewed as expanding gun rights and putting some restrictions passed by states in jeopardy.
The Nashville mass shooting occurred the day before the Senate Law & Justice Committee voted to advance the assault weapon ban for a final floor vote last week.
State Sen. Yasmin Trudeau, D-Tacoma, read aloud the names of the six victims to the committee. Three were 9-year-old students: Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney. Three were school staff members: Katherine Koonce, 60, the head of the school; Mike Hill, 61, a custodian; and Cynthia Peak, 61, a substitute teacher.
“I am here making this comment as a mother of small children,” Trudeau said, lamenting kids having to do mass shooting drills. “It’s not OK that we’ve normalized a gun culture, and I believe that we should recognize and appreciate that we have an opportunity to do more today than thoughts and prayers.”
The Nashville shooter used two firearms whose sales would be banned in Washington if the assault weapon bill passes, Trudeau noted. Identified as a 28-year-old former student, the shooter also carried a pistol and was killed by police who swiftly responded to the attack.
Gov. Jay Inslee, at a news briefing with reporters last week, also talked about Nashville in urging lawmakers to send him the gun measures. “We ought to be angry and we ought to insist on action. And thank goodness we live in a state where we’re going to take action,” he said.
Republican legislators, who have unanimously opposed the assault weapon ban and other restrictions, argued that blaming Nashville or other mass shootings on guns is a mistake.
“It was sickening to see. We have a mental health problem in the U.S., and we need to deal with that problem,” state Sen. Jim McCune, R-Graham, said before the committee vote last week.
State Sen. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, called the Nashville massacre “a hate crime against Christians.”
The assault weapon proposal, House Bill 1240, would ban sales and transfers of more than 50 specific gun models, including military-style weapons such as AR-15s, the popular semi-automatic rifles which have been used in many of the deadliest mass shootings in the U.S. It also would prohibit other firearms with similar features, no matter the model or manufacturer.
If the measure is approved and signed into law, Washington would join nine other states banning the sale, manufacture and transfer of assault weapons, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
The support for the assault weapon ban is a shift from past legislative sessions, when it failed to advance to floor votes even under Democratic majorities.
State Rep. Strom Peterson, D-Edmonds, has sponsored the proposal every year following a 2016 shooting in Mukilteo, in which a 19-year-old man shot and killed his ex-girlfriend and two others at a house party. He had studied the owner’s manual for his new AR-15 in his car before the shooting.
If the Legislature had acted previously, “those lives would have been saved.” Peterson said at a public hearing earlier this month. “That young man would not have been able to access that weapon.”
“We want to stop the next Uvalde, the next Parkland, the next name-a-school shooting or a mass shooting event,” he said.
Another major gun measure in play, House Bill 1143, would require gun sellers to wait 10 business days before selling guns to purchasers. It also would require purchasers to show proof they’ve completed a firearms training safety program.
The waiting period, sponsors said, is intended to reduce the chances of someone buying a gun and using it to kill themselves or others in a fit of rage or depression.
The third major gun proposal, Senate Bill 5078, would require the firearms industry to take “reasonable controls” to prevent guns from being purchased by straw buyers, gun traffickers and people who pose a risk to themselves and others.
Backed by Attorney General Bob Ferguson, the bill would give his office authority to investigate and pursue damages for any violations under the state Consumer Protection Act.
O’Connor said the gun measures advancing this session represent a political shift. Instead of shying away out of fear of electoral consequences, he said, most Democrats are running proudly in support of such laws. “It’s the nail in the coffin for the NRA and the gun lobby’s political power in Washington state,” he said.
Indeed, opponents of the latest gun proposals appear be all but resigned to the bills passing, given the Democratic majorities that were only strengthened in the recent midterm elections.
But they argued any victory dances for gun control advocates will be short-lived once the proposals come before courts.
“You’ll get your moment in the spotlight, but we will persevere,” Daniel Mitchell, a gun store owner from Vancouver, Wash., told the Law & Justice Committee this month.
Seattle Times staff reporter Claire Withycombe contributed to this report, which also includes material from The Associated Press.
