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I-594 (courtesy facebook.com)

“In Tuesday’s vote count, nearly 60 percent of voters were supporting I-594, which would extend background checks in Washington state to private sales and transfers,” seattletimes.com reports. “The measure was winning in eight of the 10 largest counties in the state.  A competing measure, Initiative 591, which would bar the state from enacting any background checks more extensive than federal law, was being rejected by 55 percent of voters in the initial count.” As Jeremy stated before, bad news indeed. Predictably enough, the anti-gun initiative is coming soon to a state near you . . .

Everytown for Gun Safety is gathering signatures for a similar initiative in Nevada, and future campaigns are being planned for Arizona and Maine, according to [Everytown for Gn Safety President John] Feinblatt.

Alan Gottlieb, chair of the Yes on 591 campaign said he was considering legal action against I-594. He said he would lobby the state Legislature to either toss the initiative or amend it, on the grounds that it poses too many complications for law enforcement and gun owners.

Not to mention the fact that background checks are a form of registration that leads to confiscation – because then Alan would have to decry ALL background checks for firearms sales, including the federal NICS check. And that’s about as politically palatable as repealing no-smoking bans in maternity wards.

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168 COMMENTS

  1. If he can’t win at the federal level, the state proposition systems would be the next stop. Expensive as all get out, but he has tons of money.

    • That is exactly the point!

      Unless the “background check” issue gets defused at a federal level, it will be rammed through with draconian initiatives in the states which have that process. There won’t be enough money to fight them all.

      The NRA better wake up and start taking this initiative threat seriously. And coming up with a solution ASAP.

      The only place the NRA has real lobbying influence is in congress and the state legislatures. Initiatives do an end run around all that.

      The only way to kill this is to either get ahead of each state with our own initiatives, or kill it totally at the federal level. Which means an NRA-backed manchin-toomey-esque bill, which gun owners will have to hold their nose and swallow.

      • The NRA can’t not be taking this seriously. It’s not like they are clueless. Whether they can walk UBCs back after working to defeat several federal lawmakers over their background checks vote remains to be seen, assuming it is a good idea to pursue such legislation, which someone smarter than me would need to figure out.

        • Sorry to inform you, but as a WA resident, I feel like the NRA has totally left us out in the cold on this one. I saw PLENTY of TV PSAs calling for support of I-594, but not one calling for either defeat of I-594 or support of I-591. We had some local support, and some grassroots work done here, but from the NRA….(sound of crickets).

          So…don’t depend on the NRA to help you out in those other states.

        • @Rick Testa, If your state NRA chapter and members didn’t get after this in the grass roots, how do you expect to win these things.

  2. This is what happens when society is desensitized to the phrase “Background Check.” Its a long shot convincing voters that a background check on ANYTHING is a bad idea in a day and age where fast food workers get criminal BG evals.

    Picture a ballot referendum which says buying a cell phone requires a criminal background check, ya know, to catch drug dealers- if you’re someone who either dislikes or is only passingly familiar with technology it sounds fantastic . As for us, we then sound like tools to uninformed voters-as what reasonable person DOESNT want to make it harder for bad guys to get guns?

    Its going to be a tough factor to fight, since most people reading this or attending the polls probably underwent a criminal BG check just to get a job.

    • This is what happens when society is desensitized to the phrase “Background Check.”

      Maybe we should call it “photo I.D. for gun buyers and gun sellers“, since both buyer and seller will be required to show a government issued photo ID to an FFL dealer in order to transfer a firearm.

      Voting Rights. . . . we oppose laws that place unnecessary restrictions on those seeking to exercise that freedom. Democrats have a proud history . . . Democrats know that voter identification laws can disproportionately burden young voters, people of color, low-income families, people with disabilities, and the elderly, and we refuse to allow the use of political pretexts to disenfranchise American citizens.

      – Moving America Forward [sic]
      The 20102 Democrat Party Platform, page 18

      • I would ignore that law. Forever. And there is no way to enforce it without demonstrating that they *do* keep a registry, and have for a long time, like since NICS started. Like, “where is the Kimber .45 auto SN XXXXX that you purchased at such and such LGS on July 15 1994? Produce it or we prosecute!” Not gonna happen. Ignore it. En masse.

        • ^^ THIS!

          No one, and I mean no one, has been able to explain to me how anyone other than the buyer and seller are going to know there was ever a sale?

          When the question comes “Where is this gun of yours?” The answer is even easier… “I surrendered it at the last no-questions asked gun buy-up.”

        • Washington registers handguns and has a 7 to 30 day waiting period on same due to state background checks.

          They know what you have and when you can have it. So, you either restrict yourself guns with serial numbers made before 2015, or you play the felony game.

          More likely I think the people that will get ensnared in this are those that dont know about or underatand how the law works. They think it’s for gun shows and next thing you know they’re bragging about their brother in laws benelli shotgun they borrowed for duck season and a cop overhears and , “boom, losing”.

  3. “He said he would lobby the state Legislature to either toss the initiative or amend it, on the grounds that it poses too many complications for law enforcement and gun owners.”

    That wouldn’t be an option in AZ, since the legislature can’t override a ballot initiative. Wow. That’s scary.

    • i’m not an expert, but i imagine if they got it on the ballot here it would lose at least 2 to 1.

      can’t see it passing here in AZ at all.

      • Agreed.

        The good people here in my home state of Az will shoot that bill down so quick. Ive been here for 30 years and I think in all that time I’ve had maybe 10 people tell me they don’t own guns or would support stricter gun laws.

      • Agreed. I moved to AZ from the Pacific NW. There is a huge difference between Arizonians and people who live in the NW. Arizonians would go to war to protect their 2nd amendment rights.

      • Keep believing that. Bloomberg’s pockets are VERY deep. He will carpet bomb your state like he did WA. His campaign is very slick and professional and well funded, and uses unbelievably dirty tactics.

        You think NV will just sail through and vote down this initiative without any trouble. Have you even read the bill? It’s even more draconian than I-594! And NV gun groups and the NRA aren’t doing jack about it so far.

        Without massive NRA support, NV is going to get destroyed.

      • Hah; right NJ2, Chris, and Bob, just keep your head buried in that AZ sand.

        AZ Proposition 122 being near evenly split 50:50 indicates the nature of the voter orientation in your newly adopted state as being susceptible to 2nd Amendment assaults by well-funded anti-gun groups and rich billionaires. Now that they managed to lie and buy their way into conning the majority of Washington State’s metropolitan Democrat voters into passing I-594, the grabbers are looking for other favorable venues to push their anti-gun assault. Arizona’s on the short list, along with Nevada and Maine – all mostly rural states with congested liberal oriented population centers vulnerable to the antis’ tactics.

        I hope Nevadans aren’t fooled, but the grabbers are using tactics and rhetoric that will successfully convince most voters who aren’t invested in the gun rights cause. Not a good prognosis for rural states whose politics is heavily influenced by large liberal oriented cities. At least AZ’s citizens are more in tune with their independent spirit. That’s a big plus.

        • It won’t happen. There’s still enough “old blood” here in Az to hold it off.

          Not too mention the huge amount of pro gun people that are fleeing their anti gun states for here.

  4. Well, maybe the NRA will help those in other states, because they threw us under the bus. As far as Alan Gottlieb goes, I don’t recall seeing a single ad for I-591 or against I-594, I won’t be holding my breath waiting for the state legislature to toss or amend I-594.

    • Threw you under the bus? We must have a very different definition of that.

      In the end, the NRA could not compete against the cabal of billionaires that funded 594. Gates, Allen, Bloomberg et al bought your state. Well, it was for sale, and they had the money, so why not?

      • the NRA could not compete against the cabal of billionaires that funded 594.

        The same people who complain about “money in politics” love money in politics when money in politics supports their politics.

        The same people who celebrate “money in politics = freedom” complain about “money in politics” when money in politics works against them.

        The blatant hypocrisy on both sides is, well, blatant.

        • Win or lose, I love money in politics. Money is what overcomes masses of low-IQ idiots who take their marching orders from some union dolt or other pressure group “leader.” The downside of money is that some states can be bought, like WA with its billionaire cabal and CO with it’s multimillionaire cabal known as the Gang of Four, who own Hickenlooper. What, you thought that some bar owner managed to be elected on his own? Ha.

          That’s just the way it goes — the money giveth and it taketh away. But on balance, it’s a good thing. I take the bitter with the sweet.

        • The people who have power in a democracy are not the people. They are the people who tell the people what to think. Which is why the Left gets so shrill when there are competing voices to theirs telling people what to think (e.g. Fox News, evangelical churches, “dark money”, etc.).

        • It’s like when people claim they hate negative campaign ads, but elections have shown time and time again they are actually quite effective.

    • dph. Gottlieb is SAF. SAF sponsored I591. The NRA gave a lot of money to WA. You just need to google it.
      There are lessons to be learned here, but fingerpointing at fellow gun rights folks is nof one of them.

      Looking in the mirror might be a start, if you really are from WA.

      • I talked to people I know in Washington ( and I’m from Oregon) advising them against
        I 594. Several were gun owners that ( originally) thought at face value it (I 594) was A GOOD thing
        ( the Idea of background checks) not realizing the scope of the BILL. Throw in all the wishy washy misguided people that happen to own a gun, along with the City folk sheeple that don’t, and They will believe I 594 will SAVE the world from bad people OR SCHOOL SHOOTINGS.

        If you look up election results from the Washington Secretary of State -Elections site,
        all the counties surrounding Puget Sound voted for it along with Clark County (Vancouver, WA) and surprisingly 3 counties ( one including Spokane) in eastern WA along Idaho border.
        It is also surprising of the (rural) counties that voted it down, how close to passing it was in some of them.

        • It’s worth pointing out that there was only 30% voter turnout in the state so this initiative was decided by 6% of the actual registered voting public. Get good turnout, a good PR campaign, and get it on a big election year ie: 2016 and you would have different results.

          Putting it on the mid-terms when most people can’t be bothered to mail in their ballot makes it tough to win.

    • Gottlieb’s CCRKBA is the one that basically wrote I-591 in the first place. I mean, seriously, if you are voting on these things, at least educate yourself about them!

      And I’ve seen plenty of anti-594 and pro-591 signs all around Eastside.

    • I had signs for 591 and against 594 prominently displayed on both ends of my front fence, as did my neighbor. You can’t depend on the low info voter to read all eighteen pages of a law without doing a Homer Simpson. Wait until the first one gets arrested for letting his brother borrow his shotgun.

    • NRA did not throw you under the bus. they likely spent a lot more in Wa than garnered from dues in Wa.

      Billionaires dumped massive amounts of money there. Do not blame the NRA

    • you damn well bet I will be following those cronies around everywhere and anywhere they go here in AZ with a counter message to them.

      That is, my 97B on my hip, my Rainbow Boa around my neck, and a message stating, “Gays with guns don’t get bashed.”

      I will do my hardest to break every single stereotype that they can possibly bring out, just to make them look even worse than they are now. This will fail in Arizona, that’s for sure.

    • You just elected another Dem for house (which now puts AZ evenly split for Rep and Dems). I am guessing PHX and Tuscon carried that vote?

      If it gets to a ballot initiative, I’d watch out. The urbanite party ‘for free shit and no personal responsibility’ is carrying more of these things, particularly during Presidential election years.

      They got it to our assembly last year (NV) and our Govenor vetoed it. They have been out in force gathering signatures here and will re present it to the assembly once they’ve gathered enough signatures. I expect our (new) assembly to reject it. At that time it will become a ballot initiative and it is a toss up at that point. Liberal clark county and reno could carry the vote (particularly if it is boarded in the 2016 ballots).

      • Having been here only a short while (about 12 years), I’ve seen a steady change come over this place as more people move here from their crappy home states but cling to the thinking that made the places they left so bad. Now that the West has been settled (a Walmart every 3 or 4 miles and a Walgreens on every corner), the descendants of those who weren’t hearty enough to cross the plains are showing up in greater and greater numbers, and they’re bringing their statist tendencies with them, you know, to civilize the rest of us.

    • seriously. demolishing wacko progressive ballot initiatives is arizona tradition . i bet they couldn’t get a yes vote much higher than 30%…and honestly i feel thats generous.

      • Two words: smoking ban. Two more words: light rail. Both were bought in by the ballot, both are wacky ideas that metastasized here from other places, along with the wacky people from other places. Now that they’ve made California unlivable, they’re coming here.

  5. Overall, I would call this election a failure. Sure the gov is now red, but that was going to happen anyway. Hickenlooper and Malloy are still standing, and we lost Washington state. Not a win in my book.

    • Vhyrus, you need a bigger book. Aside from taking the Senate and expanding the majority in the House, the GOP also toppled Dem governors in deep blue states. It was a huge night, but there are casualties in every battle. You just can’t win them all.

    • I find your assessment surprising. I’d post the entire list, but that might be objectionable to management. Instead, a link: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/11/04/Second-Amendment-Crushes-Gun-Control-Candidates-In-Midterm-Elections

      NRA-backed candidates did astoundingly well. The 2nd amendment supporters were clearly influential in many important states, just not in Washington State. Washington State has….Seattle. The margins were not so wide (especially on 591), though, as to suggest that more active educational efforts could not have improved the outcome.

    • You have to look beyond the Governors and into the legislature. In NY, Republicans won a majority in the Senate. In CT, we now have 50/50 in the senate and the house is down to a 10 seat difference. Another go around and while the governors races may be lost, they are essentially unable to do whatever they want anymore.

      You need a big picture view and the GOP needs to show they can lead and put forth solutions and create jobs.

      • There are no Republicans with a spine in the NY state senate. They could have blocked the un-SAFE Act from ever seeing the light of day, but they didn’t have the cajones or the conviction to do it. I’m so glad I moved !

    • Vy, +1 to what A81 said, and another link to that AWR Hawkins piece, because for sure you arent going to see that same truth in the StateRunMedia™, desperately spinning to avoid the obvious.

      So pass this link along,
      remind your 2A friends and family,
      on balance this was another proof of the vast sea change underway, despite the huge hidde money behind the gun grabbing sck puppets, andc the advantage of the progressive press spinning desperately for them.

      HUGE WINS FOR 2A RIGHTS:

      http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/11/04/Second-Amendment-Crushes-Gun-Control-Candidates-In-Midterm-Elections

    • Overall, I would call this election a failure. Sure the gov is now red, but that was going to happen anyway. Hickenlooper

      Yeah, I agree. That Bloomberglicker managed to get re-elected, even by a small margin, is pretty disheartening — especially since Beauprez was leading by about 1% during last night’s counting.

      In the other state-wide race, Corey Gardner (Republican) won a decisive victory over incumbant U.S. Senator Mark Udall (Democrat).

      Colorado Governor:
      John Hickenlooper (Democrat, incumbant): 48.4%
      Bob Beauprez (Republican): 47.0%

      U.S. Senate (Colorado):
      Corey Gardner (Republican): 49.3%
      Mark Udall (Democrat, incumbant): 45.2%

      The conventional wisdom as of today is that the senator was hurt by being associated with President Obama, a stigma that didn’t attach to the governor.

      For what it’s worth, having participated in Democrat Party caucuses in 2010 and 2012 (before leaving the party), there was lot of dissatisfaction with Udall back then.

      And also for what it’s worth, Governor Roy Romer (Democrat) won re-election during the Republican wave of 1994.

  6. As long as potg argue amongst ourselves this crap will continue. I have seen it here in the comments. For example, NRA vs Alan Gottlieb, oc vs cc, fudds vs tacticool, etc. We have to stand together and fight as a unit.

    When I was in the Army, there were people in my unit that I could not stand and who’s believe system was so far from mine that we could hardly be in the same room, but we were a unit and we had to put our differences aside to accomplish our mission

    • +1. We have won a decisive battle, but this is a long war, and you can bet the Progressives and Radical Left in the Dem Party, and this WH are not going down without a fighg over thet next two years, with every dirty trick and abuse of power they have already used, and more.

      Feed the horses, feed the men, feed the officers. Get a good nights sleep, after action and lessons learned in the mornig, and detailed plans coming days, to be put on the strategy table, then mount up, and back to the fight.

  7. I don’t see that flying up here. Hope I’m not wrong about that. We have a pretty vibrant gun swap and sell community that I’m just getting into. Trying to flip a Carcano I just got.

  8. See defend an indefensible position and lose big, gottlieb supported manchin Toomey which would’ve blunted these efforts and given us more then we lost, but the NRA killed M-T AND THEN REFUSED TO HELP US IN WA

    I think this is, in a sick way, a victory for gottlieb against NRA extremists

    • OBSCENITY DELETED. Are you serious? Give the antis an inch and they’ll take your guns. Every “compromise” takes them closer to their goal. This battle was lost with NICS checks. We need to fight this initiative tooth and nail and then go after ALL gun registries and take out NICS. Yes, NICS must die. It’s gun registration, and anyone with eyes can see where that leads. Both historically and contemporaneously. Blogging this one later, but it proves the point.

      • You can fight it as much as you want, but it’s not happening. So you can fight the battles you can win, and take the victories that come from those, or you can go for a glorious last stand that will give you nothing at all.

      • @Robert

        Is there any law saying that the NICS background check has to be tied to a gun serial number? Why not have gunstores give the option of a non-firearm related NICS check, purchasable by whomever desires. That way there is no “registration” of a gun in a private sale, and a receipt could be kept by the seller indicating that at the time of sale, the buyer passed his NICS check and was legally allowed to purchase. Heck, people might use the NICS database to check backgrounds for all kinds of reasons.

        For the record, I am against NICS and think it’s a horrible idea. I’m just trying to make it more palatable in places like WA.

      • Robert, think of the bill passed this year in MA. It was going to pass, the only question was in what form. So, the state-level organization worked with the legislature to make it less onerous and then supported it. It was the smart thing to do in MA. Luckily, most states don’t have to be like MA, but if circumstances change, that would change as well.

  9. Steel yourself. I hate to be a wet blanket, but it’s going to be very hard to defeat these proposals. The analogy I would use is the minimum wage referenda, which won even though Republicans also won (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/06/upshot/what-democrats-dont-get-about-the-minimum-wage.html?rref=upshot).

    The registration…confiscation rhetoric may play well with many supporters, but generally these proposals don’t strike many people as totally unreasonable. Maybe it’s a huge pain in the ass to have private sales go through dealers, but the average person does not deal in firearms, and sees this as something that applies to other people. Even then seems like a straightforward principle: know your customer. A lot of the rhetoric is frankly, vastly overblown.

    People look at the proposal in front of them: All private sales require a background check. And? They do not extrapolate to registration, or confiscation. They just don;t care if the govt knows that they have weapons.

    The worst thing you can say is that there is a record of the transfer and its a PITA. And? For most people, it won’t apply to them. It will have zero effect on crime, true, but like getting ID at the polling booth, people just don’t see the big immediate harm. They think, hey maybe you should know your customer.

    To defeat these at the ballot, we need new lines of attack: Costs to administer, real direct abuses, and so on. Otherwise, these are freebies for the anti-gun lobby (like so many other ballot initiatives. The other way to render these toothless is to greatly limit the number of crimes that make one a prohibited person (e.g. non-violent drug offenses).

    Ballot initiatives tend to be a fad. The real question is: What comes after, and what happens to the politicians that support them.

    • > To defeat these at the ballot, we need new lines of attack

      + 1 million

      During the s**t storm last year, it was depressing to see the utter incompetence of gun-owner rights groups here in Colorado. They were just repeating the same talking points from 20 years ago, when it was obvious that wasn’t going to work.

      For people who talk a a lot about self-defense and self-protection and tactial mindset and all that s**t, the Bloombergites were running cirlces inside our OODA loop.

      Here’s a very small suggestion to start: stop talking about “gun control” and start using the phrase “gun owner control”. Don’t make the debate about inanimate objects, make it about people. Yeah, I know that TTAG editors like to use “civilian disarmament”, but that’s just one of many examples of being too clever for our own good, in a way that doesn’t resonate with the average American.

      • “They were just repeating the same talking points from 20 years ago, when it was obvious that wasn’t going to work.”

        Wait. You mean those same gun owners and gun-rights activists that secured the recalls and helped organize the defeat of a Senator?

        Yep…that’s some obvious “not working.”

        Good grief.

        • Yep…that’s some obvious “not working.”
          Good grief.

          I guess I missed the part where the gun-owner-control bills were defeated and didn’t become law.

    • “The worst thing you can say is that there is a record of the transfer and its a PITA.”

      Well, no. There are worse things than what you mentioned, and they are really bad.

      John Lott has talked about this. The real problem with BC’s is false positives deny law abiding, non-prohibited persons the right to bear arms, sometimes in cases where a gun is needed for self defense.

      The time it takes to clear up a false positive hit, and false positives are by far the majority of what the system produces amounts in practice to a “waiting period” on a gun purchase. Sometimes the waiting period is a couple of days and sometimes it is much, much longer.

      Further, another drawback of BC’s is that the efficacy in catching felons is virtually zero. They lead to convictions in less than 0.02% of the cases where a positive is flagged.

      So, for all this “gain,” we have created more bloat in the bureaucracy, more ‘expectation that government will keep us safe,’ spent more taxpayer and private money and created delays or wrongful denials of free citizens fundamental, transcendental rights.

      That’s not a system to support or accept expansion of.

      • It’s not that I disagree with you, its that for most people the impact is abstract. How many people really go out and buy a gun the instant their life is in danger? Relatively few. Gun owners already have a gun so false positives do not affect them. Non-gun owners have decided they don’t need it (yet), and do not anticipate a false positive, let alone needing a gun. So it does not impact them directly either.

        My guess is that of the 60% who upheld I-594, 59% do not think it will ever impact them.

        Does it really bloat bureaucracy? How many state troopers does it require? One? Two? Three? If you can quantify this you might be on to something.

        The trouble with these measures is that its like being opposed to cute kitten pictures. Sure they do not do much, maybe they just feel good, but who can really say no when the downside is all theoretical?

        Anyway, you are sort of missing the point of these initiatives: It’s not to solve crime, but to drive sympathetic voters to the polls.

        Arguing the merits of the initiative may merely be playing the game on their turf.

        • “My guess is that of the 60% who upheld I-594, 59% do not think it will ever impact them.”

          +1000. No argument with that.

          Sadly, that’s true of a lot of things in politics.

          “Does it really bloat bureaucracy? How many state troopers does it require? One? Two? Three? If you can quantify this you might be on to something.

          The system as a whole represents some bloat. I can’t put a number on it, but someone had to set it, someone will have to maintain these bigger picture databases, etc.

          .gov has such an excellent track record with streamlined, efficient operation that I took a gamble and made a guess. 😉

          “Anyway, you are sort of missing the point of these initiatives: It’s not to solve crime, but to drive sympathetic voters to the polls. “

          Not I. I think “red herring” was the term I used recently to describe UBC.

    • Politicians generally steer clear from initiatives / referenda. So they are immune from accountability no matter which way they get voted on by the public.

      And that’s the problem. The NRA’s power lies in state legislatures and congress. The NRA has zero lobbying power over initiatives. There is nobody to hold accountable except the voters.

      So you either battle initiatives head on, which takes bundles of cash — or you defuse them with your own legislation.

  10. As a Washington State resident of a decade and a half, I am deeply saddened that this Initiative passed due
    to the exuberant spending on lying ads by Bloomberg and cronies.

    The Left side, more populous than the bordering Idaho Right side, has bought it, hook line and sinker.

    Pun for the posted picture fully intended…

    • Washington State commenters don’t seem to mention Paul Allen and Bill Gates often, the homegrown anti-2A billionaires. Nope. It’s all Bloomberg. From the other side of the nation I find that laughably revealing. On one hand the mid- and lower-level techies in King County abhor the Gates/Allen push for more H1B visas. But then they seem to forget what the H1B push reflects, in terms of liberty and prosperity. Clearly many of the same people who want protection from cheap foreign techies….gave a big F#U to their target sport and hunting neighbors and those in the shooting sports business. I’m losing sympathy fast for that crowd, as I did years ago for the San Francisco/Silicon Valley mindset.

      • +1. There is a lot more going on there under the surface than most of realize, and I for one am going to be interested in what SAF has to say, this being there home state, but even more from insiders others in the NW tech world.

        One thing is clear from watching from afar, IMHO, is thevanti-gunners just did a much better job of dumbing things down, to educate and mis-lead the voters, and feeding that out through the local press, despite the objection of well informed gun rights citizens, and LEO experts.

        That alone is a warning, and a reminder, a poster child for the misrepresentation of all citizens, by an influential few, in states where 100@% left liberal voting blocs in populous metros like Seattle sway policies over an entire state that is much more middle of the road, even conservative in vast rural areas.

        The Marysville shooting was tragic in more ways than one, but polls were already showing momentum shifting the anti-gunners way a week prior, despite big NRA money coming in. So therecare strategic and tactical lessons to beclearned on messaging, mehods, and money, all of which I think will emerge shortly, from those who know.

        And the imediate opportunity is to learn why, and how, for these next states, and a national strategy, if possible, or you can bet the antis, and Bill Gates is no dummy, will stay inside our collectve OODA loop.

        So, now is not the time to blame, or plqy NRA vs SAF games,, but look deep in the mirror, first, and assess, adapt, and overcome on the next.

        I look forward to that post Robert, on NICS, the technology, how it works, the history, and abuses, and how UBCs and gun registration works, so we can unbind or unwind or completely transform it, to work for us.

        to turn ig around to work for us.

        Just yelling louder, on platitudes, is not enough. I want to hear from SAF and NRA, too.

        A unified national strategy, that can be enabled and trained, tweaked to match each state, may be the answer. SAF may have been too late, or outgunned, or simply unable to win, in that overwhelming liberal soil in WA, but that doesnt mean the same is true elsewhere.

        Losses sometimes teach us more than wins.

        • The NRA and the SAF have to stop squabbling and start working on a coordinated strategy to battle these state initiatives. We need to start demanding that the NRA and the SAF resolve their differences and start working together.

          Either defuse them at a federal level, or get ahead of them at the state level with our own legislation.

          Gottlieb saw this coming a long time ago and warned about it. The NRA was too shortsighted to realize how bad it is. The SAF made tactical errors fighting 594, but the NRA could have helped more. The NRA dumped $30m into congressional races, including nearly $3m in a failed bid against mary landrieu. Only $480k was sent to WA to battle 594.

          This is part of bloomberg’s strategy to destroy the NRA.

  11. What really needs to happen is that a fully licensed person being arrested for handing his fully licensed buddy a gun at the range and saying, “here, try this.” It’s called a test case and it’s the best way of exposing the absurdity of this law — which I’m sure was written by Boomberg’s people (who also wrote the SAFE Act) — and is the template for all such laws to follow.

    • At the range that would be legal. But if we went out to state land, or private property, it would be illegal. Hell, in 30 days it will be a misdemeanor for me to hand a CPL bearing friend a gun in my own house, then a felony if he hands it back.

      We should organize a protest in Olympia, where we take unloaded, cased guns, and in unison exchange them with a partner in front of the legislature.

      • We should organize a protest in Olympia, where we take unloaded, cased guns, and in unison exchange them with a partner in front of the legislature.

        That’s the type of thinking we need more of.

        There was talk about doing the same kind of civil disobedience in Colorado last year, with 30-round magazines (which are legal to own, but now illegal to transfer). Nothing ever came of it.

        Before the “2/23 Day of Resistance” last year (February 23, 2013), I was communicating with some of the organizers about doing the same, since 20+ round magazines are illegal in Denver. Even though Tony Fabian, a lawyer and president of the Colorado State Shooting Association, offered to represent people who were arrested for doing so, the so-called “Day of Resistance” organizers were too timid to, you know, arrange to commit an act of resistance.

        At the end of that rally, during the “open mic” session, some guy — a dashing, handsome fellow, if I say so myself — went to the podium, cited the Denver ordinance banning 20+ round magazines, waved a 30-round AR-15 magazine in the air, and dared the police to arrest him. Nothing happened. As it turns out, the police force at the state capitol building is the Colorado State Patrol, who do not enforce City of Denver ordinances.

        • Moms Demand were calling for mass arrests at the Day Of Resistance. They tweeted that and then realized that would not be good for public relations so they deleted it.

      • Exchanging firearms at the range are only exempt if the firearms are “kept at the range at all times”. The only guns that fit that condition are the rentals. Firearms brought in by you and your family/friends would have to go through the checks, if anyone other than the owner wants to shoot them. The only exemption for family members is giving the firearm as a gift. Guess what, your buddy would like to shoot one of your pistols, so he pays the fee for the background check and the state use tax (9.5% of the guns value). Now he can shoot your gun, but you can’t. It’s in his name now. You have to repeat the process to shoot your gun.

      • You really need a published opinion from the WA AG before attempting civil disobedience. Ask for an opinion if handing a gun to someone qualifies as a transfer under 594.

        If you don’t get an opinion, then likely what will happen is you will do your big gun swapping protest — LEO will ignore it, nobody will be arrested. MDA / POGR will claim victory, “see! we told you handing a gun to someone isn’t a transfer! haw haw haw!” and you will all look foolish and have accomplished nothing.

        Get a WA AG opinion FIRST. Get him to admit handing a gun is a transfer. THEN do your civil disobedience.

        If the WA AG opinion states handing a gun is not a transfer, get an opinion for another innocent scenario which he does consider a transfer. And go after that with your civil disobedience.

        • You really need a published opinion from the WA AG before attempting civil disobedience….
          …Get a WA AG opinion FIRST. …
          …If the WA AG opinion states handing a gun is not a transfer, get an opinion for another innocent scenario which he does consider a transfer. And go after that with your civil disobedience.

          That type of concrete real-world practical thinking does not belong on a gun forum, especially this one.

          But seriously, you’re absolutely right. That’s damn good advice.

  12. As an outside observer of the WA gun rights battle, I was pretty confused as to why there wasnt a surge of NRA support, I admittedly dont know that much about Alan Gottlieb and any underlying beefs that may be festering between other gun rights organizations. Either way, the amount of money going into WA during this 594 debacle would have been an uphill battle for any gun rights organization to say the least…

    Also, I was quite surprised to see how much blue came out of AZ(one of the most gun friendly states from what I know) on a picture I saw of a voting map earlier on Breitbart.

    https://twitter.com/rkylesmith/status/530038078917058561/photo/1

    • I can tell you the only opposition Bloomberg and gates got in my county was a token effort by the NRA by way of a stupid raffle… pay 50.00 for a chance to win 8 guns and a safe.. limit: 300 tickets….proceeds go to friends of the NRA.. utter bullshit… yeah there were a few bumper stickers,.. But nothing like the commercials blaring on tv by some commie sheriff from the westside.. .

      • Thank you. More ground truth from other WA voters?

        I read a comment somewhere that Seattle Times might as well have been owned by Gates, based on all he ads everywhere in there publications, for weeke prior. Maybecsomeone can confirm facts, and look into ties on their editorial board, or private ownership. Sour grapes forcnow, butg an indicator for tactics elsewhere, to watch, and deter?

        Bloggers and POTG share what we know? With no ego on ownership?
        An Army of Davids?

        http://www.amazon.com/Army-Davids-Technology-Ordinary-Government-ebook/dp/B003R4Z2KO/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=

      • Lived in WA all my life (66 years now) and the ad campaign FOR I-594 was very visible. Opposition ads seemed to be non-existent. Seemed odd to me that some of the half truths and lies in the pro 594 ads were not exposed. There appeared to be NO resistance to the PRO ads. That combined with the school shooting up North and it was not a surprise that 594 passed. Very demoralizing to see no ads against 594 or for 591. So, once again the folks with the money and against guns had their way. Hate to see where this trend will go in the future. Hoping the court challenge will bear fruit but that seems like it will be much more expensive and time consuming than defeating 594 in the first place. And no guarantee it will be successful.

    • The current breakdown in AZ House is 36 to 24, in the Senate 17 to 13. The Democrats may pick up a spot here or there after yesterday’s elections, but I am not sure what the new breakdown will be.

      Senator Flake was elected in 2012 with approximately 50.4 percent of the vote to Richard Carmona’s 45.2 percent (these were not quite the final numbers, I can’t locate them).

      The percentage of households with guns, according to what I think is a decade-old data ( http://usliberals.about.com/od/Election2012Factors/a/Gun-Owners-As-Percentage-Of-Each-States-Population.htm ) is 31.1 percent, which is neither high nor low, but is more or less in the middle.

      So, it is not a blue state, but it is not as red as people imagine, and the trend is towards purple. An initiative like I-594 may or may not pass here, but it is not out of the question for it to pass. Hopefully, the NRA or someone will be doing some polling and figuring all of this out.

      • i genuinely believe our democratic voters out here here are still generally Pro 2A, and while they might vote for democrats over republicans, if asked to vote solely on a gun rights issue, they would not vote in favor of restricting gun rights.

        Anecdotal obviously, but whenever i go shooting (at the range or on public land) its not just a white boys club. There are plenty of latinos out there who looooooooove shooting.

        How many times have we seen a wackadoo progressive ballot initiative get crushed 66-33 out here?

        i’m not scared. not now anyways

        • Good points, but remember that money also plays a role, and there will be a lot of money involved if this ever actually gets to AZ.

  13. I don’t think the anti gunners will get very far in Maine but we must stay vigilant

    http://bangordailynews.com/2013/04/13/politics/lepage-courts-gun-manufacturers-offers-incentives-and-guarantees/

    LePage said that he “is ready to provide incentives and guarantees” to companies such as Beretta USA Corp., Colt Manufacturing Co. and Magpul Industries and said “we would welcome and support the manufacturers of firearms and accessories.

    “I will never sign anti-gun legislation that erodes the rights of Maine citizens, drives your business away or infringes on the U.S. Constitution or the State of Maine Constitution,” LePage stated in the piece. “I’ll even throw in some lobster.”

    • Maine *could* be at risk for this.

      Hopefully yesterday’s re-election of Gov. Paul LePage (Republican), election of Bruce Poliquin to the U.S. House (Republican), and defeat of the anti-bear hunting Referendum Question #1 will cause the proponents of so-called Universal Background Checks to think twice before trying this in Maine.

      But there is still a strong liberal Democrat presence here in Maine, so it might take a major effort comparable to Bear referendum fight to stop this here. If the same coalition that stopped the anti-bear hunting initiative re-groups again – this can be stopped.

    • doesnt matter what the gov says. voter initiatives completely bypass legislature and put it to public vote. that’s why they are so dangerous. they are immune from NRA lobbying.

      throw enough money at them and you can buy any legislation you want.

  14. Would be interesting to try something like:

    -Repub “we will give you universal background checks but in exchange we want silencers and SBRs/SBSs removed from the NFA”

    -Dem “Thats nonsense then any criminal or madmen could buy those evil death weilding silencers that make a 30mm GAU8 go pew pew like we hear in the movies!!”

    – Repub “but you shouldnt have to worry because we are passing universal background checks so no criminals can buy silencers”

    – Dem “yeah but background checks dont stop crimin… errr I mean… uh… herpa derpa…. FOR THE CHILDREN!!!!!”

  15. Open up NICS to the public on a VOLUNTARY basis with NO REGISTRY then make it super-duper illegal-er to sell a firearm to a felon…. Problem solved. That will make sure the law abiding people who aren’t the problem in the first place can have a way to keep abiding the laws they weren’t breaking to begin with.

    Why do they keep trying to pass laws that would have no effect on the target group of people who IGNORE THE LAWS we already have?

    • I agree. Whats the big mystery on eligible or prohibited. Make Fedgov responsible for errors in data, and open the db to a mobile app, so I can be sure my neighbor or someone I meet at the gun show is good to go, and thats it.

      Its not the gun which is illegal, it is the person using it in an illegalb way. its etrictly person centric, right? Thatscall the cops and da needs to know?

      Who cares who owns how many of what? Thats none of my business, nor is it FedGovs.
      I dont care who you pray to, what you do in the bedroom, of how many cars of what type, and the Fedgov shouldnt spy on how many guns than they regulate those things.

      I might be missing something but this seems pretty common sense to anyone, potg or not.
      And a side benefit is to put the ATF out of a job, which is long overdue now, that even DHS wants.

      Less regulation and smaller govt …whats not to like?

      • The reason your suggestions were not included in the original NICS passage is that the entire reason for the checks is the 4473, to create a registry. Violators are not even prosecuted, the ONLY reason is the registry, and it is handicapped by gun shows and private transfers not being included. They will never drop the SN, description, etc, but will continue to lie about the purpose. If it is supposed to check ME, why is the particular firearm even mentioned? For the registry. If you buy 3 guns at once, ALL have to be on the form. Figure another reason why.

    • Your suggestion assumes that the issue is actually background checks. It isn’t. The background check noise is just to cover up the registration (Form 4473). That’s what it’s all about. The Form 4473.

      • We PotG are wasting all our ammo on BCs when the much more serious problem is the 4473 form. I hear practically nothing in the way of complaints that FFLs must retain their forms for 20 years. Think about that! If Congress passes a law all those forms – 20 years of forms all over the country – will be on a convoy to Washington facing an army of scanners.
        The Feds won’t be able to trace every serial number; they won’t have to. They will just need to compile a list of “frequent buyers” and they will know on which doors to knock. Then, they tell the frequent buyer to open his gun safe and turn em all in. If they don’t think he has turned them all in they will go through his 4473 forms looking for an infraction. Can you account for what you did with this serial number? You must have sold it while living in XY State during a certain year when you were required to use a FFL to officiate on the transfer.
        We could live with a U-BC law carefully crafted by PotG to exclude paperwork. Too many of us PotG piss and moan about BCs because they are betting they can stop Bloomberg (and now Gates et. al). So, now we will all have to spend money on Congress-critters to stop Bloomberg’s BC bill instead of spending that money on getting National Reciprocity. See, PotG? How effective your complaining about BCs was in Washington State? Want to try again in State after State when many States already have laws requiring 4473 forms on some or all private transfers?

        • The only point I would disagree(slightly) on would be the futility of fighting U-BG checks at the state level. Some fights need to be fought solely as a preemptive battle to keep issues from cresting the hill of that all too slippery slope we’ve seen thousands of times throughout history. Fights at the state level sometimes have a much better chance of succeeding than at a federal level where there is much less accountability via direct contact with local constituents for the politicians pushing their agendas. The state level fights also serve to set up a de-facto legal precedent for federal level cases where the ruling federal judge can avoid being held solely culpable for his/her decision by referencing the previous decisions as a reason for theirs. Our “justice” system at times seems to be no more than ass covering on an epic scale filtered down from one case to the next. If we plan on keeping what we have or gaining ground in the future we need at times to play the game by their rules no matter how crooked those rules may be….. At least until the rules can be rewritten whether for good or ill.

          Two old phrases come to mind…. Adapt or die… and… Fight the battles you can win.

          “Peace through superior firepower” should always be the last resort when other options exist.

  16. As A Washington state resident for most of my adult life. I can tell you the difference between the statewide claim of 60% in favor of this Nazi law is Bullshit.. I live East of the cascades and I can tell you the 60% of the eastern side of the state were opposed to 594, and 60% were in favor of 591.. the exact opposite of the westside… we had three defectors on the east side..Spokane county, whitman, and Asotin… the rest of the east side of the state voted NO.

    This just reaffirms my support of splitting the state in half at the cascades, and perhaps joining North idaho.. I just wonder how bad things have to get forthe rest of the east siders to want the same thiing.

  17. I’m seeing a whole hell of a lot of people bitching about what happened in WA instead planning on how to fight it. Never forget that this law can go away with a strong enough challenge.

  18. Don’t panic. Arizona and Nevada are not Washington State. A background check referendum will probably fail there. Don’t know about Maine.

    • Clark county, which is about 90% of Nevada’s population has gun registration.

      Only 40% of the people who showed up to vote in WA voted against 594. Many gun owners voted for it, because they had no idea what it actually says, and what it can turn into with the next step towards confiscation. They read the tag line “Save Lives. Reduce Crime” and believed it.

  19. I support all efforts of my fellow minded friends in the USA to continue their right and freedom to pursue their hobby/sport/ need for defence by keeping and using their arms. I live outside of the states in France but I am a paid up NRA member and fight hard to support our rights whether in the USA or elsewhere.

    Once lost you never get the freedom back again…………

    Keep up the struggle, keep shooting and good luck – work together to beat these anti-everything narrow minded groups.

  20. I had a thought, and perhaps some of the lawyers on here can chime in on this.

    The initiative (full text here) defined firearm for the purposes of the law.

    (9) “Firearm” means a weapon or device from which a projectile or
    projectiles may be fired by an explosive such as gunpowder.
    (10) “Gun” has the same meaning as firearm.

    So by their definition, a barrel is not a gun, a slide is not a gun, and unlike the federal definition, even a receiver is not a gun. Is that a viable defense against this law? Could I hand someone a “parts kit”, kinda like the guys in Colorado can still legally buy 30 round magazine parts kits, which are nothing more than unassembled magazines, and assemble them?

    • I would also add that smokeless powder – used in all modern firearms – is classified by the US gov’t as a “Flammable”, not an “Explosive”. Blackpowder – used in muzzleloaders – is an explosive.

      • I was just looking at this angle. BATFE does actually classify smokeless powder as an explosive, at least for transportation purposes. However, RCW 70.74.010 says:

        (5) The term “explosive” or “explosives” whenever used in this chapter, shall be held to mean and include any chemical compound or mechanical mixture that is commonly used or intended for the purpose of producing an explosion, that contains any oxidizing and combustible units, or other ingredients, in such proportions, quantities, or packing, that an ignition by fire, by friction, by concussion, by percussion, or by detonation of any part of the compound or mixture may cause such a sudden generation of highly heated gases that the resultant gaseous pressures are capable of producing destructive effects on contiguous objects or of destroying life or limb. In addition, the term “explosives” shall include all material which is classified as division 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, or 1.6 explosives by the United States department of transportation. For the purposes of this chapter, small arms ammunition, small arms ammunition primers, smokeless powder not exceeding fifty pounds, and black powder not exceeding five pounds shall not be defined as explosives, unless possessed or used for a purpose inconsistent with small arms use or other lawful purpose.

        (6) Classification of explosives shall include, but not be limited to, the following:

        (a) DIVISION 1.1 and 1.2 EXPLOSIVES: Possess mass explosion or detonating hazard and include dynamite, nitroglycerin, picric acid, lead azide, fulminate of mercury, black powder exceeding five pounds, blasting caps in quantities of 1001 or more, and detonating primers.

        (b) DIVISION 1.3 EXPLOSIVES: Possess a minor blast hazard, a minor projection hazard, or a flammable hazard and include propellant explosives, including smokeless powder exceeding fifty pounds.

        (c) DIVISION 1.4, 1.5, and 1.6 EXPLOSIVES: Include certain types of manufactured articles which contain division 1.1, 1.2, or 1.3 explosives, or all, as components, but in restricted quantities, and also include blasting caps in quantities of 1000 or less.

        (28) The term “small arms ammunition” shall be held to mean and include any shotgun, rifle, pistol, or revolver cartridge, and cartridges for propellant-actuated power devices and industrial guns. Military-type ammunition containing explosive bursting charges, incendiary, tracer, spotting, or pyrotechnic projectiles is excluded from this definition.

        (29) The term “small arms ammunition primers” shall be held to mean small percussion-sensitive explosive charges encased in a cup, used to ignite propellant powder and shall include percussion caps as used in muzzle loaders.

        (30) The term “smokeless powder” shall be held to mean and include solid chemicals or solid chemical mixtures in excess of fifty pounds which function by rapid combustion.

  21. Couple nights ago i was approached at my car by a woman sking me to sign the petition for this BS here in Las Vegas.
    I had my hand out, the second she answered me asking what it was for i handed that sh RIGHT back to her and told her we already have background checks and one of the few states to have a handgun registry…get that garbage out of my face

      • I DON’T KNOW how my response landed under this
        above comment about LV signatures)

        I was responding to this… chain of comments

        emfourty gasmask says:
        November 5, 2014 at 13:17

        you damn well bet I will be following those cronies around everywhere and anywhere they go here in AZ with a counter message to them.

        That is, my 97B on my hip, my Rainbow Boa around my neck, and a message stating, “Gays with guns don’t get bashed.”

        I will do my hardest to break every single stereotype that they can possibly bring out, just to make them look even worse than they are now. This will fail in Arizona, that’s for sure.

        Geoff PR says:
        November 5, 2014 at 15:35

        At first reading, emfourty, I thought “Rainbow Boa” was a new or colorful breed of boa constrictor…

        this be nuts says:
        November 5, 2014 at 15:43

        It’s NOT???
        -grin-

        Additional comment =
        I was thinking a snake too at first.

  22. I am surprised they haven’t started targeting blue states like minnesota who don’t already have a registration scheme in place.

    Then again, I hope I’m not giving them ideas either.

    • It wouldn’t surprise me if that number is correct. However, I doubt that percentage of people support the overreaching crap they’re trying to shove down our throats.
      If someone where to ask me if I liked broccoli, I would say yes. But that doesn’t mean I would support a law that forces me to put it in every damn food I eat.

  23. Washington state has 3,923,401 registered voters (http://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/vrdb/vrdbfaq.aspx). According to the results, the measure passed by a vote tally of 725,003 to 489,457 (http://results.vote.wa.gov/results/current/State-Measures-Initiative-Measure-No-594-Concerns-background-checks-for-firearm-sales-and-transfers_ByCounty.html) This means a majority consisting of 6% of eligible voters decided this measure. Are you telling me that the pro-2A people are only 12% of eligible voters in Washington state?

    The REALLY important thing to consider is that 2.7 MILLION Washington staters were apparently too high on weed to bother to vote. If just one tenth of those apathetic non-participating subjects in that state had bothered to vote against this, it would not have passed. Just 10%. How many people of the gun are in that non-voting 2.7 million eligible voters do you think? 270,000 maybe? That would’ve defeated it. The people there have no one to blame but themselves.

    • Oh……But you don’t know of those 2.7 million which way that 10% would have actually voted?????? or where they could be located.

      Of the Numerous County Sheriff’s (and law enforcement ranks) that were Against passage of I 594, there were many that were for it or by silence Inferred Support of I 594.

  24. I posted a few of these comments on another thread but I think they probably bear repeating. The legal and political people at the NRA have in all likelihood not wanted to devote large amounts of money fighting what they do see to be a losing campaign against the millions of dollars from Allen, Gates, Ballmer, Bloomberg, etc. Wih the influx of good income high tech Californians for the Puget Sound area, politics around here is becoming much more like California, sadly.

    I may be way off, but I think that the NRA must have been keeping its powder dry for a legislative and court fight to knock this sorry initiative down rather than to fight an obviously losing battle for low information public opinion. The Seattle Times coverage of this, the constant drumbeat from its editorial writers, the skewing of news stories always running on the front page on anything anti-gun, has been truly astonishing to me, and I have watched politics here for decades. Out right lies and misrepresentations, coupled with editorial writers that are a new breed of young blogger without a shred of intellectual or journalistic integrity turned loose on an unsuspecting low information public to promote the political agenda of the Times editorial board and its ownership. A sad state of affairs for public discourse and public policy, indeed.

  25. Washington State already had a form of registry ( as I understand it) by way of the County Sheriff getting involved in the background check and keeping a copy (of a state form in triplicate) of all the buyer/ gun info from an FFL transaction ( at least regarding Handguns).

  26. Wow. The Atlantic and HuffPost are gleefully predicting the march of similar initiatives across the country, backed by Bloomberg and local millionaires. And, as expected, completely lying and misrepresenting what the initiative does.

    Ink isn’t even dry on the election and are they had their wonderful editorials all ready to roll.

    • Let them say it. They may not be entirely wrong, but some of it bound to be bluster, so we need to calm down and figure out the best course of action.

    • The NRA spent $450k opposing 594 in WA state, and something like $30m in various races across the country. The NRA spent nearly $2m in a failed bid to unseat mary landrieu. They had lots of slick TV advertising.

      For WA state, nothing except a bunch of yard signs!

  27. Alan Gottlieb, chair of the Yes on 591 campaign said he was considering legal action against I-594. He said he would lobby the state Legislature to either toss the initiative or amend it, on the grounds that it poses too many complications for law enforcement and gun owners.

    Bull. Gottlieb has spent the last two years pushing for this same law at the federal level.

      • He still talks about the background checks, the question is whether we will be forced to listen to him or whether there is a way out.

        • It is unlikely the background check argument can be won. There is no argument you can make that will resonate with enough voters to matter.

          So you either write your own legislation, or get draconian legislation rammed down your throat, as happened with I-594 in WA. And will happen in NV, AZ, ME.

          Other battles are potentially winnable. “AWB”. Magazine limits. Mandatory storage/Licensing/Insurance.

          Background checks is not one of them.

          Pick and choose your battles. Fight the ones you can win, lose the ones you can’t on as favorable terms as possible.

        • Dan, this is the big issue, can the rest be defused or will they happily move on and pour millions of dollars on initiatives to pass additional legislation. Tens of milions per state may well buy more than UBCs. Likely, that’s why the NRA chose to fight the UBCs. Whether it was the right strategy, I don’t know, but that was likely the reason.

          In WA, they will be pushing mandatory storage in the legislature come January. Tell me it is going to fail after this referendum’s “message” and the school shooting.

        • It is unlikely the background check argument can be won. There is no argument you can make that will resonate with enough voters to matter.

          Unfortunatley, I believe you’re right.

          Perhaps — in addition to the civil disobediance discussed elsewhere — we should modestly propse more background checks:

          – a background check to buy a car
          – a background check to buy a cell phone
          – a background check to buy a computer
          – a background check to purchase internet service
          – a background check to vote
          – a background check to get a marriage license
          – a background check to get an abortion

          etc. Then more people will have some skin the game.

          Or at least make our enemies come up with arguments against truly universal background checks. Maybe that have some ideas we haven’t thought of. The entertainment value alone would be worth it.

      • A recent quote from http://www.guns.com/2014/11/06/everytown-washington-was-just-the-beginning-warms-ballot-measures-up-in-other-states/ :

        “I knew that they had planned to do this,” Gottlieb told Guns.com Wednesday. “That is why I have been so pro-active in trying to make sure that we drive the train and write the background checks in a way that protects our rights. No registration, and provisions that expand our rights in other areas that the other side would be forced to accept. Maybe now some gun rights activists that have been criticizing my approach will take their head out of the sand before it is too late for these other states.”

        The real question at this point is what direction the NRA will decide to take on these initiatives.

    • Details matter. Gottlieb was not pushing a clone of I-594. Whether he was right to do what he did is another story, but he surely wasn’t out promoting a similarly bad law.

  28. One of the biggest issues is a low voter turnout…
    Democrats and liberals historically have a low voter turnout …. even in WA, King county had less than 30% turnout but in absolute numbers, they made up about 1/3 of all the voters who sent in their ballot.
    If people in other counties were not sitting on their behinds, maybe we would have had a closer contest.

    Oh and by the way….

    http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2014/11/05/gun-safety-advocates-deliver-post-i-594-message-were-not-done/

  29. Things like this are why we have to always watch what is going on in states besides the one we live in. The idea passes in one state, and the Bloomberg-financed organizations decide to bring it up in others. You don’t want to wake up one day and find a SAFE act in Georgia, for example.

    Now, another question, how the heck do they propose implementing this? The devil is in the details. Look at the background check requirement for ammo purchases in New York. It’s codified into law but they can’t figure out how to implement it.

  30. You have to have a BG check for everything these days. I’m surprised you don’t need to get one with every drivers license renewal. I can see it now, sometime in the near future, you’re out at a bar/club and meet a guy/gal, and before you can get for his/her number, the ask for your SSN to do a background check. Your evening ends with you falling asleep alone in your bed while watching internet porn on your laptop.

  31. Washington was an outlier event. The school shooting put that over the top. My guess is most voters thought that would do something to stop such events even though that is a patently false view.

    Despite it being an outlier all the media is saying the only gun issue effect on the elections nationwide was a win for gun control advocates in Washington

    • WA was a test case for this new strategy of using voter initiatives to ram through legislation.

      24 of the 50 states have initiative processes or something close to it. Throw enough money at an initiative and you can pass just about anything.

      It’s not an outlier. It will become the norm unless the NRA starts taking this tactic seriously.

      • This. They used my home state as a test lab for their tactics.

        -Misleading commercials blanketing the airwaves? Check.
        -Glossy mailers sent across the metro areas? Check.
        -Exploit a terrible shooting tragedy just days before the election? Check.

        About 13 million dollars was dumped into WA in total for the gun initiative campaigns. 10 million of it was from the pro-gun control lobby, including several million from Bloomberg.

        Look out folks. Your state is next.

        On a numbers note, voter participation/turnout was pathetic. Only about 36% of registered voters voted.
        http://results.vote.wa.gov/results/current/Turnout.html

        Maybe if the NRA had done more work to get the gun-owners out to vote, it wouldn’t have passed. Mid-term elections generally favor older, more middle class, conservative voters… yes, this demographic does exist in WA state. We’re not all wannabe plaid lumberjack yuppies and yoga moms up here.

      • But do we know that the NRA is not taking it seriously? It would suggest utter incompetence for them not to realize that this is an important issue. Maybe they felt, right or wrong, that WA was a lost case and didn’t want to spend money there. They might choose to take a stand on such a referendum in a more conservative state. 59 percent for I-594 is impressive, but that was, after all, in a pretty blue state, and with us being told repeatedly how it is a 90 percent issue nationally.

        Is Bloomberg really that certain to pull it off in AZ if he really goes there, where the latest registration figures are 1,114,713 Republicans, 936,417 Democrats, and 1,157,811 independents? I wonder if that’s why he is making these initiatives so almost comically onerous, to scare everyone into passing the bills legislatively to save him the headache of having to fight the fight state by state over many years, and quite possibly lose some of those battles.

        Manchin-Toomey resurrection is something to consider, of course, and in the upcoming Congress one might be able to get a better deal than on it than under Harry Reid, but first one has to decide if passing such a thing at the federal level is a wise strategy.

        • Is the NRA not taking initiatives seriously? I currently see them doing jack squat in NV, where an even more onerous initiative is being pushed.

          Background checks needs to be defused at the federal level.

          Otherwise you’re looking at endless draconian “UBC” initiatives in 24 states, there won’t be enough money to fight them all. And you will lose everything.

          The NRA has a freshly all-red congress, it would be foolish to not start leveraging that immediately. Also, if the NRA starts lobbing for what the public perceives as a “gun safety” bill, it could improve the NRA’s public image.

        • Will the NV initiative be voted on in the general elections in 2016 or a special election before then? If the former, there is still time.

          I suspect the NRA folks are currently trying to figure out the strategy. Whether they will choose to fight these initiatives or go the Manchin-Tommey route remains to be seen. I have a hard time seeing how they could turn around and support the UBCs after sinking millions fighting Hagan and Landrieu over their votes for same, but stranger things have happened.

          If they do go that route, not having Harry Read not allowing much of anything in return will help, but they will still need 60 votes in the Senate and a bill that can survive presidential veto.

          I will say this. The idea that the NRA will improve its “public image” by agreeing to UBCs may be naive. I suspect it will be more the case of vultures smelling blood and wanting more of it.

  32. If you are in a state in the crosshairs, join the state 2A gun lobby group (if available). Here in AZ, we have the AZCDL (Arizona Citizens Defense League), so I urge fellow citizens of AZ who aren’t involved with it, to join or at least check it out. We can’t always rely on the NRA or Alan Gottlieb to fight for us, we need to do it ourselves.

  33. They will not stop with WA, this is fact. Get your systems in place.

    What happened in WA is the appearance of a majority acceptance, not true. The win is unfounded. Many people were confused, frustrated and voted no on 591 and 594, amplifying the 594 vote. The misrepresenting misleading campaign garnered support from the public who only had time to read the ballot lead-in. A massive money spent advertising campaign did not expose all which was contained within 594. They promoted only the emotionally motivating parts. 18 pages with only a few words of the entirety promoted.

    This is an example of the nefarious side of the far-left progressive movement. Make no mistake, you may have thought only the Tea-Party is an extremist group, think again!

    These billionaires now have a proven strategy to inject anything they want to change our world and have it the way they think it should be. The far left extremists have overreached. Repeal and or petition against I-594.

  34. I have no doubt that Bloomberg et.al. are working on getting crap like this passed elsewhere. On the 4th as I pulled into the local fire station to vote some douchebag in POS 25 year old Ford was cornering everyone coming in to try and get them to sign a petition seeking a law in Nevada requiring ALL private transactions to be registered and go through a background check.. I ripped him a new asshole and told him if he was still there when I walked out after voting he would be VERY unhappy with what was going to happen. That Shiite might fly in the liberal bastion of Las Vegas but not in farm country. I made it VERY clear that his life was in real danger for espousing that political belief in the location he had chosen.

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