What’s The Growing Price Of Freedom In Washington State? $126 Just To Get Started

As courts have ruled in the past, the right to keep and bear arms protected by the Second Amendment also includes the right to “acquire” arms. After all, if you can’t acquire firearms, how can you keep and bear them?

Still, some states try to make it more difficult. And some even try to put the ability to purchase a firearm out of the price range of average citizens.

Last May, Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson signed a measure creating the permit-to-purchase scheme for prospective gun owners in the state, and the law is set to take effect in May 2027. And recently, the state launched a website telling gun those wanting to purchase a firearm how much extra it is going to cost them moving forward.

“Gun violence in Washington state breaks apart too many families and kills too many children,” Ferguson said upon signing the measure. “We must put commonsense reforms into place that save lives.”

The “commonsense” part must be something that Gov. Ferguson doesn’t possess himself. It doesn’t take much sense, common or otherwise, to know that making law-abiding citizens pay more money to practice a constitutional right isn’t going to effect the so-called “gun violence” that he says, “breaks apart too many families.”

According to the Permit to Purchase portal created by the state, the cost of applying for the five-year permit will be $126. Of that total, $96 is for the permit application and $36 is a fingerprint processing fee. On top of that $36, the agency conducting the fingerprinting may also charge a fee for taking the prints, pushing the cost up even higher. Renewal of the permit will cost $90.

Note that according to the website, the permit-to-purchase application fee is nonrefundable. If a permit applicant happens to not be approved, he or she loses the $126.

Ultimately, violent criminals aren’t going to follow this law—just like they don’t follow other gun laws. That will leave lawful Washington gun owners to take the brunt of the effects, while violent crime in the state will see no reduction. Of course, that’s par for the course for most gun-control laws, which are more about control than about guns.

Incidentally, the permit to purchase requirement isn’t all that was included in the new law. A person applying for a permit to purchase firearms must provide a certificate of completion of a certified firearm safety training program within the last five years that, at a minimum, includes instruction on: “basic firearms safety rules; firearms and children, including secure gun storage and talking to children about gun safety; firearms and suicide prevention; secure gun storage to prevent unauthorized access and use; safe handling of firearms; state and federal firearms laws, including prohibited firearms transfers and locations where firearms are prohibited; state laws pertaining to the use of deadly force for self-defense; and techniques for avoiding a criminal attack and how to manage a violent confrontation, including conflict resolution.” The course must also include a live-fire component where applicant must demonstrate “safe handling of, and shooting proficiency with, firearms.”

Of course, it’s up to the state, ran by anti-gun politicians and bureaucrats, to determine shooting “proficiency,” meaning they could make the standard so high nobody could qualify. And, applicants will have to pay another fee to take the course, when and if the state ever provides a list of trainers that can teach it.

To be sure, violent criminals won’t follow this law any more than they would the permit-to-purchase requirement. The net effect will be more lawful citizens forced to jump through more hoops and pay a higher fee just to exercise a constitutionally protected right.