Washington ballot initiative I-1639 puts a 10-day waiting period on AR-15 purchases and raises the minimum age for AR-15 purchases to 21.
The initiative also puts special background checks in place and adds other controls to such a degree that the Seattle Times reports the initiative’s passage will make “Washington’s firearms laws…among the strictest in the country.”
Washington state made news by passing universal background checks via ballot initiative in 2014. The initiative was bankrolled by millionaires and billionaires such as Steve and Connie Ballmer, Nick and Lenore Hanauer, and Bill and Melinda Gates, among others. The campaign supporting the initiative presented background checks as key to protecting Washington residents from gun violence. Yet now, just four years later, gun control proponents are pushing a new initiative full of restrictions, including “enhanced background checks.”
According to the Times, $3.6 million has been donated to the new gun control initiative by “Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul Allen, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and venture capitalist Nick Hanauer.”
The enhanced checks will apply to anyone who purchases an AR-15 or AK-style rifle. Purchasers will also be required to attend a gun safety course.
Other controls in I-1639, the newest initiative, include gun storage requirements that portend felony charges for gun owners if their firearms are accessed by unauthorized persons or stolen.
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.