The impassioned video above didn’t stop the passage of Washington state’s “universal background check” bill. And so an unknown number of gun rights advocates are set to convene at the state capitol to violate the law in plain site. They’ll exchange guns, buy and sell guns and generally play pass the firearm – all in contravention of the newly-approved I-594’s provisions. The cops have yet to declare their intentions for this act of mass (the participants hope) civil disobedience. So it could be a damp squib (hardly anyone shows, the police do nothing and only local media pays attention), an ugly police action (a bit more local media coverage) or something really not good (LOADS of media coverage). Click here for the I Will Not Comply Facebook page. At the time of writing, Resolute for Arms and Liberty has a scant 1650 followers. Still, as Shannon Watts will tell you, the longest journey starts with a single like. [h/t CM]
I have a bad feeling that some people are going to be away from their families on Christmas.
I wouldn’t worry about it too much. There’s been statements from the police there that they have no intention of of messing with anyone there. But I won’t deny that I worry about the same thing. I’m a WA resident and I plan on being there. Although I have no money to trade guns or anything like that I’ll just be there for general moral support.
Just take a friend.
I’m going with a friend and we’re going to hand each other cased handguns. Then reverse. One gross misdemeanor and three felonies in under five seconds!
While that’s technically a violation of the law — and what is law but a collection of technicalities? — I think it your action would be unambiguous if you leave out “Then reverse”. The two of you can always trade back later.
Somebody on another TTAG thread offered this advice that’s well worth repeating:
@anon – that would work well if one can find a Sheriff to formally request that opinion and follow through babysitting through the process and get it done in a reasonable timeframe.
Now, if nothing is done at this publicized event and at some point in the future someone is arrested for a “transfer” substantially similar to this disobedience, one might be able to argue why would a law that was not enforced suddenly be enforced.
Just thinking out loud.
“No one will be arrested for exchanging guns, said Calkins, the patrol spokesman.
“We don’t see handing a weapon to someone else as a violation of the law,” Calkins said. “We don’t see that as a transfer.””
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2014/nov/13/gun-rights-activists-plan-i-594-protest-at-capitol/
your ‘civil disobedience’ of handing guns around will accomplish nothing except make you look silly.
Did any of the Washington state legislators receive 1 penny in foreign money for their campaign to overthrow our Constitution?
Legally I’d hope not. Palms do get greased but often in ways difficult to track. The truth is likely yes and no. Consider Giffords coming from out of State, did she receive a few bucks to ease costs? Undoubtedly. And her, just like the people from Newtown were involved in situations where 594 would not have made any difference, this is fact.
State Patrol who cover this area said they have no plans to make any arrests.
Musical Firearms! Love it!
Didnt a similar thing happen in Colorado with 30rnd mags? Love the idea but it wont change anything.
Looks like the 30-round prohibition didn’t change anything, either, with “kits” and readily re-modifiable “modified” mags being sold openly in Colo gun shops. Well, nothing except running some profitable tax-paying industry out of the state.
I’m sure Coloradans are better off and safer without those law abiding criminals Magpul giving people their dirty freedom tainted jobs.
No. There was a lot of talk about doing it, but no action.
http://www.examiner.com/article/activists-defy-new-colorado-magazine-ban-front-of-state-capitol
I had no idea that actually happened.
1) I wish I had known. I would have been there.
2) It’s a pretty small crowd.
3) Since it got no attention — even I didn’t know about it — this should be done on a regular basis. Say, an annual event. And it needs a lot more people.
Still, kudos to them for doing something more than just complaining on the internet.
We should have a Brass Balls of The Day award for anyone with the cajones to participate in this.
I’d say it’s 50/50 for Brass Balls of The Day and Idiot Gun Owner of The Day.
Spanish grammar nazi here: That’s “cojones”; “cajones” are empty boxes. Another word often used for “cojones” is “huevos”–literally “eggs”, referring to the presumed size of the organs in question…
Si.
I thought that cajones were drawers, as in a chest of drawers. I always called boxes cajas.
First offense is up to a year in jail and 5K in fines…plus legal fees for the inevitable legal battle, which would presumably take years. You’re a braver man than I to blatantly break this law.
I suppose the key word is “blatant”, because everyone who has a gun will likely be breaking the law many times just by going about their normal business.
I think specifically meeting at a protest at the capital applies as “blatant” pretty well…of course the average gun owner will break this preposterous law many many times over the course of a year, but not specifically to make a political point.
Firearms are allowed on state property. This includes the capitol building.
No gun-owner-rights group is prepared to offer legal representation to any protestors who are arrested?
How come I’m not surprised?
I admire anyone brave enough to do this… but I have a family. I think there are more subtle, clever, and effective ways to resist.
Yeah, the most effective way to resist, is to gripe. Hey, it worked for english gun owners!
The word is “Sunshine Patriot.” And to the guy who can’t go because he has a family, remember that George had Martha, Thomas had Sallie, and John had Abigail and John Quincy.
…Thomas had Sallie…
You win the hidden TTAG joke of the day award.
Because you’ll be doing the cause a lot of good sitting in jail, or when you get out jobless and a convicted criminal…
What do you think happens when they arrest you? That your in prison until after your trial?
For a first offense, you get arrested, post bail, and your on your way. Come back for your court date and hope for the best. I would love to see the police arrest and process 1000+ people, I think that the spectacle alone would make for interesting news.
That is the point JoshinGA isn’t it? You have to be willing to go to jail and not be able to get a job in order to make the cost of enforcing the law higher than the benefit of enforcing it. Do you think POT is being legalized because people came to their senses or is it being legalized because people are willing to go to jail and not able to get a decent paying job that it is now causing a huge negative for society to keep on enforcing this law vs just leaving them alone.
The only way this law is going to be stopped or overturned is by making the cost to enforce it higher than the benefit of enforcing it.
I believe they could very easily issue a summons for the people they witness breaking the law rather than arrest hundreds. Then you have what could amount to years of legal fees fighting a court battle you might still lose. There are better options at this point to fight this law than create un-winnable court cases simply to make a political point.
A summons (or citation, or “ticket”) is easy to ignore. Then the authorities have two choices–issue a warrant or dismiss it. If a warrant issues, the authorities have two choices: Go out and serve it (ie make the arrest) or let it sit in the database and hope the subject gets stopped for a traffic violation or something (what usually happens). If the subject is not thus apprehended, the warrant sits along with other unserved warrants for years until the authorities have two choices: do a mass round-up, or do mass dismissals (what usually happens). Issuing a summons does not really save the authorities that much trouble unless the recipient voluntarily complies–or unless they wind up dismissing the thing themselves.
Subtle and clever are done, we’re past that now, and unless we can get enough people upset enough to call on our legislature to gut this law with a 2/3’s majority, we are stuck with it for at least the next 2 years.
Yeah they cant be arrested under the new law until it goes into effect…
I read somewhere that it goes into effect on December 4th.
So it seems to be:
http://ofm.wa.gov/ballot/2014/Fiscal_Impact_Statement_I-594.pdf
“The effective date of the initiative is December 4, 2014”
I will be there with my wife and three kids. I will happily and blatantly break this law in the open. If we’re lucky and this doesn’t get too much negative spin in the local news, my hope is that more people will see how asinine this law is that they voted for.
Some people have said that this is too little too late and that it will do nothing to reverse the law, but I think this type of active display is exactly what we need. More people need to be exposed to what a real freedom loving american looks like. We’re not crazies on the fringe, we’re everyday people that value our freedoms and take personal responsibility for our families safety.
If I were going to set up a legal challenge to WA I-594, I would lend a shotgun or bolt-action rifle to an unrelated friend who holds a concealed carry permit so the friend can go hunting or sport shooting with my firearm. That might be the toughest scenario to make a conviction stick under. Still, you would have to be super-ballsy as violations are a felony. I’m not that ballsy.
I highly recommend reading the actual law: http://sos.wa.gov/_assets/elections/initiatives/FinalText_483.pdf. It’s nuts.
First violations are gross misdemeanors. Second offenses are felony convictions.
TT, I believe you may be correct, that would likely make a good case.
A friend of mine that also has his CCW will be at this event with me, and we WILL be transferring firearms.
Where there is legal drugs tough gun laws will follow. Make a choice.
Correlation does not equal causation, it’s not as simple as making a choice. The legalization of marijuana may be an indicator of the general “progressiveness” of the state, but it is certainly not the reason the people voted this law in.
Also, I fully believe that any and all drugs should be legal, with no more regulations than are placed on everyday household items. What someone chooses to do to themselves is none of my business, until they make it my business. No victim = no crime!
“I fully believe that any and all drugs should be legal”
I agree that laws function best reflexively, meaning they punish abuse after the fact. Unfortunately that doesnt make it any less heart breaking when a drunk driver t-bones and kills your loved ones, even if he goes to prison for the rest of his life. Ok, fine we all agree alcohol should be legal, but insert any other mid altering/impairing substance for “drunk” and then ask yourself again.
Lets not get too carried away with this “any and all” business when it comes to drugs as some things have a higher probability of going upside down when used improperly. I agree that pot is at the very worst no worse than smoking for your health or drinking for your judgment/motor skills, but where then do we draw the line? Will you care what happens to the paranoid meth head who stabs you between the ribs at the gas station for a few bucks to get his next fix? The economics of drug addiction aren’t going to change if it is legal, if anything it will be worse because the barrier to entry will be lower and junkies will be that much further down the road before they hit rock bottom. Addicts who are broke are still going to do whatever they can, even resorting to violence to get their next fix, just like they do now, that wont change.
I bet it will be real comforting though, as you gasp for air chest tightening with every breath, that he will go to prison for the rest of his life… yep. Or when you get beaten to a bloody pulp by some guy hopped up on cocaine because you honked at him for making an illegal left turn and cutting you off. I bet your last thoughts before you fade to black will be “haha, joke’s on you homie, you’re going to jail.”
So, what words on paper have stopped these things from happening thus far?
Laws are not here to prevent a bad guy from doing bad things, they are here to allow for the punishment of the bad people that did the bad things. If you think that the deciding factor for a person to take or not take meth is whether or not it’s legal, you’re sorely mistaken. The solutions to prevent drug additions and abuse are, education, education, education!
By your exact same logic, we should make all firearms illegal, cause then nobody would get shot! You can’t just pick and choose other peoples freedoms because they align with your lifestyle. I support the freedom of all women & men unless they choose to harm others by their actions.
+1000 for JTN’s comments.
The harm to another does not take place when someone consumes a substance. The harm comes when a person takes a physical action against someone else (a punch, a kick, a stab, a shot, etc.).
The same logic used to ban drugs (potential harm to others) can be used to justify banning guns.
That’s bad enough …and that doesn’t even consider the massive civil rights violations that the war on some drug users has brought to the country.
So let’s maintain the ban on meth, because of the harm a person on meth could do. We should probably also ban guns then, because of the potential for harm.
Liberty is dangerous. If you push to ban the things you’re afraid of, you’re no better than Shannon Watts.
Then there’s the practical evidence that the war on drugs is an absolute failure at its stated goals. Drug availability is up, prices are down, potency is up, usage is up, and crime is up.
And the government has used the war on drugs and drug related crimes as excuses to violate our rights: no-knock raids, civil asset forfeiture, domestic spying, SWAT in MRAPs everywhere.
I hope that none of you are trying to equate the right to own a firearm with the right to take drugs… seriously? A gun is a tool, it has not innate ability, or chemical properties. It does one thing, fire a projectile. If I own 1 or 1000 it changes nothing about who I am or how I behave (or at least it shouldn’t). I do not loose inhibitions or become overly aggressive, it doesn’t cloud my judgment (except when I swear that 8pt looked 100lbs heavier and 2 years older when I pulled the trigger). A gun is an object, a soulless, emotionless chunk of finely crafted metal wood and/or plastic.
The right to own it is specifically enumerated and protect by the constitution.
This whole quasi “libertarian” bullshit that is spouted in favor of legalizing drugs is not, and never will be the same thing. The right to poison your body with substances that alter you decision making skills, and potentially lead to harming others is not the same as the right to keep and bear arms, and never will be. Legalizing may not lead to an increase in consumption, but it will lower the bar to entry. There is so little data related to studying the long term effects of recreational drug use so to come in to some internet message board acting like some expert is without base. So excuse me while I politely disagree.
Again, I doubt marijuana use is any more dangerous than smoking or drinking, but where do you draw the line? I guess you dont, thats why we arm ourselves I guess, so that when that coked up junky comes looking for you, you have an answer.
Interesting statement. Just off the top of my head, sounds intuitively correct (Colorado, Wash state; also DC, but the order is reversed. ) Are druggie libertarians somehow different from gunny libertarians?. Actually, I think it has more to do with who is lining up with the libertarians: “liberals” like drugs (creates more dependence on the state, and more tax revenue, theoretically) while conservatives like guns (the ultimate symbol of individual political autonomy). Maybe. (Just kind of digitally “thinking out loud” here).
It is still illegal to buy “pot” in Washington state unless you purchase it in an authorized by Washington state store. And it will now be illegal to buy firearms by any method other than those authorized by Washington state. You are not free to purchase either item. You are not free.
Nous Defions !
Really? Because I’m pretty sure that the gun laws of the 1980s and 1990s ( import ban, assault weapons ban, etc. ) were in response to illegal drugs. Or at least that was the publicly stated reason.
>> Where there is legal drugs tough gun laws will follow. Make a choice.
Legal drugs? You mean, like alcohol?
I wholeheartedly encourage everyone within a 4 hour drive to attend the event. The more, the merrier. Of course from a logistical standpoint it becomes impossible for police to arrest, process, and prosecute thousands of people.
Many people on this blog have stated that the line in the sand is when Big Brother comes for our firearms. That is exactly what this silly law is about — it is nothing more than a poorly veiled excuse to confiscate firearms from people who have harmed no one and have no intention to harm anyone.
I live in WA state and DO plan on attending the rally on Dec. 13. We had a 2A rally in Olympia in 2012 and the attendance was remarkable.
Is the plan to have immediate temporary transfers, i.e., hand it over, take it back, go home? Or is the plan to do a long-term or permanent swap there?
With the immediate short-term transfers they may not want to arrest anybody right now, since they prevaricated during the campaign whether something as simple as sharing a gun with a friend at a range was going to be illegal under I-594. It does appear illegal from the text of the law, but will they want to admit it right now by arresting someone for an immediate temporary swap?
And if no one gets arrested, will this meet accomplish anything besides giving the press a chance to present gun owners as fear-mongering types whose fears are not rooted in reality?
I don’t know what everyone else is planning on, but I plan to do a long term transfer, with a friend that will be attending with me, we are both CPL holders.
It will be interesting to see what kind of choices are made by law enforcement. If they choose to arrest 1000+ people, there would likely be mass outrage from the citizens, which would be a good thing. If they don’t arrest, they will undermine the law as voted on, and hopefully expose the insanity of parts of the law.
On a side note, I’ve spoken with a couple FFL’s in my area, and they expressed no interest in facilitating P2P transfers, so that may be another way to go after this law. If a person is made to travel too great a distance to exercise their 2nd amendment rights, that could be considered overly burdensome and unconstitutional by the courts.
On the other hand, long-term transfers are less of a grey area in the new law than the immediate short-term ones, so the likelihood of suffering serious consequences, rather than simply gettitng to make a statement about the most stupid and anti common-sense aspects of the new law, is higher.
I would like to think that no rational person could justify the prosecution of a person for giving a firearm to a family friend that is also a CPL holder. I would like to see a case like that go to court in order to challenge that aspect of I594. Like mentioned above, we’ll need some good cases to highlight the absurdity of this law, and I think a transfer between CPL holders is a good place to start, because there certainly should have been an exclusion written in for this.
I’m following this thing (from the outside, not on Facebook) and planning to go. My wife isn’t happy about the idea, but I think she’ll come around. Money is tight and I’m as far away from Olympia as it’s possible to get while still living in WA, so I’m asking anyone that would normally give me a gift to put whatever they expected to spend into the gas fund instead.
Yeah, it’s a risk. I’m a bit nervous about the negative possibilities, but I figure it’s necessary to demonstrate the rank stupidity of this new law.
Whether I protest or not, I’m going to become a felon many times over just by doing the same things I’ve been peacefully, safely, and legally doing ever since I bought my first rifle. Might as well make it mean something.
If enough people do this — and especially if it’s big and it happens more than once — when the legislature is allowed to change the initiative two years from now, maybe they’ll be motivated to dismantle the whole pile of crap.
I doubt the police will do anything about this. Just the time, effort and logistics of arresting even just a few hundred will overwhelm their resources. Such heavy handed tactics would inflame passions across the nation There would be thousands of gun owners from across the nation converging on Washington. Predictably, you will see posts on Moms Demand Action social media demanding mass arrests, Center To Support Government Violence labeling the non violent civil disobedience protestors insurrectionists and calling for the use of violence.
Now just in case if the unthinkable does happen, I have advised protestors via their Facebook being arrested to not allowing themselves to be booked and fingerprinted. Its a means to create more chaos and set up the county or state for abuse lawsuits. Jail officials think they can legally prevent someone from accessing legal counsel who does not allow themselves to be booked. That is absolutely wrong, as the right to a attorney is pretty much unlimited and guaranteed by the Constitution and case law.
I do applaud the effort, but I’m afraid this may backfire significantly.
Consider this, many of us have read the law and are convinced that simply handing someone a firearm is considered a transfer under that law. The pro-I-594 camp screamed and yelled that everyone on the pro-gun side was crazy and that they were simply fear mongering in order to scare the public away from this “common sense” gun law that would stop all crime and make unicorns and rainbows appear.
Now, there’s this protest scheduled for the 13th. Consider the optics. There’s going to be bunch of gun owners handing their firearms back and forth to each other. Some may even whip out some cash and make a purchase, but I’ll go out on a limb and assume that the cash purchasers will be a very small minority.
I would bet you a shiny nickel that the police don’t do a thing about the hand offs, and arrest the cash purchasers away from the crowds when they walk back to their vehicles.
If it rolls out this way, the protester’s efforts will end up completely supporting the MDA crowd. I can just picture Shannon Watts on TV proudly proclaiming how gun nuts were completely wrong the whole time, and see, handing someone a firearm without a NICS won’t get you arrested. Just look at all those gun nuts handing their weapons back and forth on the steps of the CAPITOL! And not one of them got even second glance from the police. And see how honest and forthright all the pro-I-594 supporters were? We told you that you had nothing to fear from I-594! And see how all these gun nuts are liars and evil and want to sacrifice your children on the bloody altar of the NRA, now look at this baby.
Then, when some instructor gets arrested six months from now for allowing a student to use his personal rifle during a real gun safety training class, no one in the media will take notice and the pro gun side will have really lost the battle.
This.
Exactly this. The rally is going to backfire, it’s going to be a PR disaster for gun owners.
“I have a family…”
“I have a job…”
“I don’t have the money to fight it…”
Fear and unwillingness to stand up and fight (without violence) an unjust law. When will you fight? When they come to arrest you or take your guns? Will you resist then? Will you shoot and make good on your ‘Molon Labe’ bumper sticker?
Too much evil and oppression goes on because of cowardice. Protest the law. Break it. The protestors on the left break it and very little happens to them. Stand up and do something.
Resistance isn’t a good idea only in theory; it’s a good idea and the only way to overcome tyranny. Just because there isn’t a boot on your neck now doesn’t mean there won’t be one ever.
Stop making excuses that run counter to your previous bravado.
It’s hilarious to read gun forums with people having things like “Live free or die” or “Molon labe” in their signatures, telling stories about how when the evil gubmint comes after them, why, they’re all geared up and ready to lock and load and resist the tyranny, and they train with their militia unit etc… but as soon as it comes to any – even much more tame – form of resisting said tyranny, there’s always an excuse somehow.
Except it was not the”gubmint” that enacted this. It was the fine progressive voters of Washington doing what progressives do. Makes it hard for me to give a shit.
It may be a voter initiative, but it’s the government that’s enforcing the law now that it’s on the books. And remind me again, how is it any different from those same voters electing anti-gun politicians who then enact laws like that?
The reason why you should give a shit is because the law applies to YOU. Where it comes from is not all that important.
If most gun owners would get off their butt and vote it might not come to having to use their guns to get their rights back. If you cant take the time to make a mark on a piece of paper you are not going to stand and fight later. Its just a lot of useless talk and zero action. There would be no gun control in America if the 150 million gun owners actually voted, but i guess that is too hard a sacrifice for them, they would rather lose their rights and talk big about fighting to get them back. They disgust me. My dad had a saying for such people, “worthless as tits on a boar”
Your mistake is assuming that those 150 million gun owners 1) share your opinion on all things pertaining to guns (I would bet that at least half if not more of those actually support UBC, for example), and 2) consider gun rights the single most important issue to vote over. For most people who own guns, their life doesn’t revolve around them, and they don’t play any particularly significant role as far as they’re concerned. So they’ll go and vote – on economy, foreign policy, immigration, all kinds of social issues like abortion etc. Guns will be somewhere at the bottom of the list.
Then there logic is faulty. The ownership of guns just to have them isnt the main reason the 2nd Amendment is so important, its the freedom that ownership guarantees. I believe that is why the issue of gun ownership and the right to bare them is the 2nd Amendment in our bill of rights and not the 10th Amendment. Guns are the tools that keep us free to be able to vote at all. Without the threat of gun owners rising up if the government goes totally rouge it is only a matter of time before we become total slaves to a leader such as the one that ruled Germany before WW2. How much do all those other issues you listed matter when you are not free and those things can be taken away at the will of a rouge leader? Gun owners that dont have their priorities straight will eventually lose both their guns and all the rights they currently enjoy because of being able to own those guns. History proves this to be true since every dictator that has ever reigned, first took away the guns from the population, before seizing total control. If you are one of the population deemed an undesirable you usually end up in prison or dead. What good are all your other life issues if you and your loved ones, end up with your backs against a wall and them asking you if you have any last words…..
Not all gun owners subscribe to the notion that gun ownership is there primarily to secure the other freedoms. And some believe that it may have been a nice idea in theory, but didn’t really work out that way in practice based on historical record.
Historical record proves that the first thing a bad government does is register the guns and then take them away later. A so-called “good Idea” of trying to keep guns out of the hands of criminals can turn into the first step on the road to slavery. I594 will not make anyone safer it will just make all gun owners into criminals because it is almost impossible to not break this law with the way it is written, real criminals dont obey laws, so this law will not even slow them down. Gun confiscation is already happening in parts of this country and guess what, it all started with gun registration. I dont trust our government or any government to have my best interest at heart when it comes to the 2nd Amendment and neither did our forefathers or there wouldnt be a 2A. You are ignoring history if you say that gun registration is not the first step in disarmament. Nice idea but this law, if not repealed, will come back to bite gun owners that voted on this in the b*&^. Didnt you see the article in the Seattle Times where the groups that supported this bill said that, yes this is gun control and its just the beginning? Wake up to reality; they want to take your guns period, and with “head in the cloud” gun owners they will get their way.
I’m not telling you what I personally believe or don’t believe (personally, I don’t support I-594). I’m telling you what the voters believe, and why it’s silly to assume that every person who owns a gun, or even most of them, will vote the same way you do.
Most gun owners believe the same way i do. I didnt say some dont but i believe it is a minority. I think most people that voted for I594 are not even gun owners or even held a gun in their live. This election was bought by billionaires its as simple as that. I didnt even see one commercial against I594 and the constant propaganda paid for by rich elitist fooled some to vote for a law that will hurt no one but legal, lawful gun owners. Look for more and worse gun control to be coming to wa state unless this law is repealed. The people believed the lies, just like they believed the lies of Obamacare. Now they will have to live with their stupidity by not researching what they voted on. We all want to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, but passing a law that will do nothing but make ignorant people “feel safe” will not do it; Just like the 10,000 other gun control laws on the books. They live in a world of fantasy thinking a criminals will obey any laws, while i and the majority of gun owners know better.
You are, again, wrong. Most gun owners are people who own a shotgun and a bolt for hunting, maybe some old .38 special revolver “just in case”. They don’t care about ARs, 30-round magazines, and all that stuff. If you don’t believe me, look up the stats on how many gun owners are in the USA, and how many members there are in NRA, SAF, GOA etc. It’s an order of magnitude difference. Now, if a gun owner is not largely apolitical about gun ownership, why wouldn’t he be the member of at least one of those organizations?
And yes, of course, most people who voted for I-594 are not gun owners, simply because gun owners are not the majority in general. The rate of ownership for households is at around 35%, and usually not all members of the household identify owners (e.g. I am a gun owner, but my wife is not), so the individual percentage is even lower.
I am not wrong, but i oviously run with a different crowd than you since most of the gun owners i know have more than just a shotgun or bolt action rifle; and my wife is more radical when it comes to owning a gun than i am. She was once a liberal before her ex broke into her home while she was not there and jumped out of the closet when she arrived home with of her friends, lined them all up on their knees and shot them all. Killing one of her friends but, thankfully for me, not her. She learned the truth the hard way and i guess, if you are right, most gun owners will have to also when it comes to protecting their rights. I will never give up my gun rights without a fight, even if i die protecting them. I would rather die than be a slave. So that is where it stands. As far as I594, i have decided to move out of Washington state where i was born, because my rights are more important to me than living in a liberal paradise.
It’s very easy to get these things wrong when relying on personal experience. Generally speaking, your friends and acquaintances tend to be people whose views and opinions align with yours more often than not. For example, if you’re strongly involved in gun politics, chances are that many of the people you know closely are, as well. As a result, if you yourself are not close to average, those people do not form a representative selection from the overall populace.
Here are a few numbers for you to crunch. According to NRA, there are about 70-80 million individual gun owners in the USA. Also according to NRA, there are 4.5 million NRA members. Both numbers are estimates, with the membership count probably closer to the true figure than total count, but either way, what this means is that only 1 out of 15 gun owners is an NRA member.
Now, look at your own circles. How many of people you know personally are gun owners? How many of those gun owners are NRA members? I bet it’s most if not all.
I do have to correct myself, though. Apparently, according to those same numbers, only 14 million people self-identify as hunters, so the majority of those 70-80 million are not. Again, these are estimates, and of course a person may well hunt occasionally without considering themselves a hunter, but still, it would seem to indicate that most gun owners don’t own guns primarily for hunting. OTOH, they’re still mostly not NRA members, which would seem to imply that they do not put particular importance into gun rights politics.
Then their logic is faulty. The ownership of guns just to have them isnt the main reason the 2nd Amendment is so important, its the freedom that ownership guarantees. I believe that is why the issue of gun ownership and the right to bare them is the 2nd Amendment in our bill of rights and not the 10th Amendment. Guns are the tools that keep us free to be able to vote at all. Without the threat of gun owners rising up if the government goes totally rouge it is only a matter of time before we become total slaves to a leader such as the one that ruled Germany before WW2. How much do all those other issues you listed matter when you are not free and those things can be taken away at the will of a rouge leader? Gun owners that dont have their priorities straight will eventually lose both their guns and all the rights they currently enjoy because of being able to own those guns. History proves this to be true since every dictator that has ever reigned, first took away the guns from the population, before seizing total control. If you are one of the population deemed an undesirable you usually end up in prison or dead. What good are all your other life issues if you and your loved ones, end up with your backs against a wall and them asking you if you have any last words…..
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/politicsnorthwest/2014/11/14/state-patrol-we-wont-arrest-people-at-anti-i-594-rally-for-exchanging-guns/#comments-page-subtitle
The Washington State Patrol says it has no plans to arrest anyone for I-594 violations at the rally, because don’t think that these are actual “transfers.” They haven’t read the law, apparently.
IANAL but I just believe that WSP unintentionally handed potential 594 violators a legal defense by that statement.
WSP is not judiciary – their opinion on the meaning of the law is not really all that important, and certainly doesn’t set any legal precedent. Besides, what they said is something different – not that they don’t think nothing there is illegal, but that they have no means to enforce it.
Just saying. Never ever saw this video before tonight. I-594 had many slick commercials mouthing lies and half truths. Never did I see a anti-594 message. I-594 was bought by outsiders with deep pockets.
I am going to defy this law also, in that i will still buy, trade, or sell a gun to a private party without going through a dealer. However, someone please answer this question for me.. how can you get around this law it you buy a gun through a dealer? Even buying through a dealer the weapon, the seller and buyer will be registered in Olympia. The dealer isnt going to not do the paperwork in fear of losing their business and going to jail. You cant buy a gun online from wa state and avoid it since you still have to have the gun sent to a dealer and do the background check to get the gun. If any part of the transfer or sale takes place in Washington state you are subject to this satanic law. There is no way to get around this law buying a handgun from a dealer out of state since you cannot legally buy a handgun out of state because of federal law. You can buy shotguns & rifles from another state but I594 says that if any part of the sale takes place in Washington state you must go through the process of this law. I have purchased several long guns online and had them sent to a dealer in Idaho so i dont have to pay Washington state taxes and Idaho doesn’t have a sales tax, however with this law i can not sit at home on my computer in wa state and order a long gun or shotgun, i will have to drive to Idaho and order the gun there and come back and pick it up there, since then i am out of wa state, In reading the law this will still be legal since not one part of the sale will be within Wa state borders. If that isn’t infringement on your constitutional rights i dont know what is. So i have decided that if this bill is not overturned in court or in the legislature i am moving out of wa state. I am sick of having the scumbags in Seattle, Tacoma, take away my rights and force there immoral laws on me. I will continue the fight against the take over of wa state with my money but not with my vote if i choice to move.
I too am considering moving to Idaho if I-594 isn’t squelched. I don’t like the fact that the liberal left coast side of WA state sets the agenda for the rest of the state. I-594 was voted on by fatuous fools that probably never fired a gun in their lives.
It also passed because some gun owners believed the lies also, or didnt read the bill to understand what they were voting on. Only 20% of wa state voters voted to pass this bill of the very small number of people that actually lifted a finger and put a mark on a piece of paper. How can their rights and the future of their children mean so little to them. I was surprised that wa state voters could be bought so cheaply by Billionaires that dont give a crap about them; sitting in their mansions with their armed guards for protection. I am so disgusted with the liberal idiots in wa, i think its time to move to a state were liberty is protected.
I come from a good Irish family that knows tyranny when we see it.
Im done talking to a troll, live in your cesspool of liberalism, i.e. socialism. Maybe your forgot that we once had a republican governor, and Senator? How old are you? Washington will go the same way as Detroit, LA, Chicago, and all the other financially and morally BANKRUPT, bastions of Liberalism. Conservatives dont live on your others money, we work for a living, while your voting block lives on hand outs from government.
Repubicans were not the conservative party back in the day, you know. Hell, by modern standards, Reagan would be a RINO. Watch the Republicans go all crazy about Obama doing the same exact thing that he did!
As far as not “living on other people’s money”, just so you’d know, the top ten federal tax-producing states are all blue, and eight out of ten states that consume most of government spending (for things like welfare and other public programs) are red. The bastions of conservative thought, like Mississippi, Alabama and Kentucky. Funny, that.
I applaud the move and hope they come back in January. The State police said they do not plan to make any arrests based on 594. The protest is a clear test to display 594 is functionally unenforceable. No one will be arrested, there is little to no risk.
People are only standing up for the rights they already have which 594 and the gun-hater community seeks to destroy. The law-abiding community is just this, law-abiding. They’ve been forced into a defensive position, they are in the corner and will push back harder than the force which pushed them in.
To be a responsible firearm owner places a person in a position where their responsibility is greater than those who do not own a firearm. This signifies a high degree of integrity. The Haters are misdirecting their efforts upon people who are the best of our communities. Evidence is seen within comments herein.
At the end of the day everyone knows I-594 was purchased into existence, has no effect on the criminal element, with an ultimate plan to take all firearms from the American citizen.
BS. It’s 2000 miles, I am not going to do that in the middle of winter. Let’s repeat in July, I’ll be there.
PS; My convertible hates snow.
I am sure this is the first round in this fight to repeal billionaire sponsored bills that take our rights. We need to pressure the reps and senators we elected to repeal this law and take it to court if that doesnt work. However, the elected officials that dont stand against this bill will be remembered in the next election. This didnt pass because the majority of gun owners wanted it, it passed because gun owners did not vote and they let 2 liberal counties in the state force there will on the rest of the state. Unfortunately, King County and Perce County control the state most of the time. Gun owners need to get off their butt and fight or that is the way it will be and worse will be coming. How much effort does it take to put a mark on a piece of paper? Washington state is a mail in ballot, so there is no excuse for lazy gun owners not fighting for their rights and the rights of their children.
It didn’t pass because the predominantly liberal King and Pierce counties constitute the supermajority of people in this state, it’s as simple as that.
Yeh right, do you even live in Washington State? The rest of the state would break off from King & Pierce County if we could. I have lived in wa state for 55 years, dont tell me how this state works. This was once a conservative state before scumbag liberals moved in a turned it into a liberal cesspool.
Yes, I do live in WA. I don’t understand what your point is. Are you disputing that King County makes up most of the state population-wise, or that it is strongly liberal?
Oh, and WA was never a conservative state in a sense that Southern states are. It’s its own thing, more libertarian if anything. though trending more liberal lately (but it still has the single most regressive taxation system in the union, with no state income tax). And given that eastern WA is largely subsidized by taxes collected in western WA – i.e. taxes on wealth produced by and property owned by us “scumbag liberals” working for Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon etc – you might find the perspective of breaking off not quite so enticing.
(The same pattern – predominantly blue states being commerce and productivity hubs, and largely footing the federal tax bill, including the subsidies to predominantly red agrarian states – also exists on the federal level, but I digress.)
I live in eastern Washington, Addressing the 594 issue in Eastern Washington won’t be a real concern. Every police officer and sheriff’s deputy I have spoken to about 594 will not enforce 594, all believe 594 is unconstitutional and enforcing it violates the oath they took to protect the constitution. Also, citizens who live in Spokane or Vancouver (WA) can easily meet across the state line (Idaho or Oregon) complete a transfer or transaction and 594 does not apply because the exchange or purchase did not take place in Washington state.
Thats true, you can go out of state to get a rifle or shotgun but not a handgun. It is good that the police may not enforce the law but the dealers will still have to enforce it and if you buy a gun from a store, the gun and you will go on the list in Olympia. We still have to do all we can to get this law overturned in court or in the state congress.