WA Supreme Court Rules Against NRA, 2nd Amendment Foundation: Gun Control Back on Ballot

The Washington Supreme Court ruled against the NRA and Second Amendment Foundation Friday, putting gun control initiative I-1639 back on the ballot for November.

On August 17, 2018, Breitbart News reported that the Thurston County Superior Court ruled against I-1639, a ballot initiative which is advertised as a legal age increase for long gun sales but which actually implements numerous gun controls.

For example, the NRA-ILA listed a few of the controls I-1639 would have put in place:

• [Created] a gun registry for any transfers of commonly owned semi-automatic rifles;
• [Introduced] a 10-business day waiting period on the purchase of semi-automatic rifles;
• [Imposed] criminal liability on otherwise law-abiding gun owners who fail to store their firearms to state standards;
• [Mandated] training prior to purchase;
• And [authorized]a $25 fee to be assessed to semiautomatic rifle purchasers.

After the Thurston County Superior Court ruling NRA-ILA’s Chris Cox said:

The National Rifle Association is glad to see the court today recognized how negligent, if not worse, gun control advocates were in their signature-gathering for this ill-advised ballot initiative. We got involved because I-1639 tramples on the rights of Washington state voters, and because the way these anti-gun activists went about pushing their agenda was egregious. We applaud this decision, and will remain vigilant in protecting the constitutional freedoms of all Americans.

Now the Washington Supreme Court has reversed the ruling in Ball v. Wyman and Gottlieb v. Wyman, the former of which was brought by the NRA and the latter of which was brought by the Second Amendment Foundation. The two cases were consolidated by the Thurston County Superior Court, and the ruling impacting both was overturned by the state’s supreme court.

The NRA and Second Amendment Foundation seized on the wording of the initiative and the method by which initiative sponsors collected signatures. But the Seattle Times reports that the state’s supreme court ruled, “[State law] does not allow for pre-election judicial review of the form, process, substance, or constitutionality of an initiative petition.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.