— from Governor Inslee’s Office —
Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced today he will propose a package of legislation to combat mass shootings in Washington state. Gov. Jay Inslee, a longtime supporter of gun safety measures, is joining Ferguson for the first time to propose limits to magazine capacity and a ban on the sale of assault weapons.
Ferguson has been advocating for these changes since 2016.
In addition to renewing calls to ban the sale of these dangerous weapons and limits to magazine capacity, Ferguson is also proposing legislation to add background checks on ammunition sales after federal rules are changed, in addition to other safety measures to keep ammunition out of the hands of dangerous individuals.
Gov. Jay Inslee — “This is the time to take action on common sense measures that will save lives. We should be making it harder for those who want to inflict mass violence and destruction upon innocent people. By limiting magazine capacity and banning assault weapons, we can work toward a day where no one in Washington state loses a friend or family members to senseless gun violence.”
Attorney General Bob Ferguson — “It took just 32 seconds for an individual armed with a 100-round double-drum magazine and an AR-15-style weapon to shoot 36 people before he was killed by law enforcement. That same rifle and magazine are perfectly legal to purchase in Washington state. That makes no sense.“
Sen. Patty Kuderer, D-Bellevue — “I am sick and tired of the seemingly non-stop incidents of gun violence in this country. We are the only country in the world where mass shootings happen with this regularity. We also have the most lax gun laws of any country in the western world. That is not a coincidence. Enough is enough. These laws will interrupt this cycle of violence. They will save lives.”
Rep. Javier Valdez, D-Seattle — “A mass shooter with a high-capacity magazine is capable of killing and injuring more people, and we’ve seen this happen over and over across the country and right here in Washington state. These are weapons of war that have no place outside of military use, police use, or sporting events, all of which are exempted from my bill.”
Rep. Strom Peterson, D-Edmonds — “We live in an era of mass shooter drills at schools and anxiety about when and where the next attack will come. My neighbors in Mukilteo suffered through a shooting in 2016. That community is still recovering. We can prevent future shooters from obtaining weapons of war that enable mass casualties in a matter of seconds. Our children and neighbors deserve the freedom to live their lives without the fear of attack.”
High-Capacity Magazine Limits
In 32 seconds, an individual armed with a 100-round double-drum magazine and an AR-15-type weapon killed or injured 36 people in a Dayton, Ohio, nightclub on Aug. 3, 2019. The Dayton mass shooting occurred just one day after a mass shooting at an El Paso Wal-Mart, where a white nationalist armed with an AK-47-type rifle and multiple high-capacity magazines killed or injured 46 people, including children.
Despite restrictions in nine states, high-capacity magazines — including that same 100-round double-drum magazine — are legal to purchase in Washington state.
High-capacity magazines were used in two mass shootings in Washington in the last four years, in Mukilteo and Burlington.
Since 1980, according to the Violence Policy Center, high-capacity magazines have been involved in at least 74 mass shootings, resulting in 720 fatalities and 1,116 persons injured. An analysis of mass shootings from 2009 to 2017 revealed that 58 percent involved high-capacity magazines, resulting in twice as many fatalities and 1,400 percent more injuries per incident compared to those that did not involve high-capacity magazines.
Limiting magazine capacity forces shooters to reload, buying precious seconds for victims and law enforcement. A would-be mass shooter at Seattle Pacific University was prevented when a student tackled the gunman when he was reloading his shotgun. During Sandy Hook, 11 children were able to escape while the shooter was forced to reload. The Dayton shooter fired 41 rounds and would have had to reload even if he had a military magazine. In Parkland, Fla., the mass shooting ended only when Nikolas Cruz’s assault weapon jammed when he attempted to reload. In the 2011 Tucson shooting of then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., the mass shooting was interrupted when the shooter, who was using a 33-round magazine, stopped to reload and fumbled the fresh ammunition.
Multiple federal courts of appeals upheld laws limiting magazine capacity. The United States Supreme Court allowed those decisions to stand.
Ferguson and Inslee are proposing joint-request legislation to limit magazines to 10-rounds. Sen. Kuderer and Rep. Valdez will prime sponsor the legislation in the state Senate and House, respectively. The bill makes an exception for law enforcement, military and recreational shooting ranges. It requires safe and secure storage for magazines grandfathered by possession on the effective date of the legislation.
Assault Weapons Sales
For the fourth consecutive session, Ferguson is proposing legislation to ban the sale of assault weapons. For the first time, Gov. Inslee will jointly request the legislation. The bill makes an exception for law enforcement, military personnel and recreational shooting ranges. The allows for the possession of grandfathered weapons purchased before the effective date of the legislation.
The bill’s definition to assault weapons is similar to the definition used by the seven other states that have banned the sale of assault weapons — semi-automatic weapons that contain at least one military-style feature. Those laws have survived legal challenge.
Compared to any other firearm, an assault weapon is seven times more likely to kill law enforcement, according to the Violence Policy Center. A study analyzing FBI data showed that 20 percent of the law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty from 1998 to 2001 were killed with assault weapons.
Assault weapons are 11 times more likely to be used in a mass shooting than a handgun. When assault weapons or high-capacity magazines are used in a mass shooting, more than twice as many people are shot.
The bullet of a 9 mm handgun travels at 1,200 feet per second and delivers a kinetic energy of 400 foot pounds. By comparison, the standard AR-15 .223 caliber bullet travels at 3,251 feet per second and delivers 1,300 foot pounds. Tissue destruction of the AR-15 is enhanced by cavitation — the destruction of tissue beyond the direct pathway of the bullet — caused by high velocity bullets with kinetic energies that are over 2,500 foot pounds.
The bill is sponsored by Sen. Kuderer and Rep. Peterson.
Ammunition Sales
Ferguson is also proposing legislation to strengthen state rules regarding ammunition sales.
Washington state does not regulate ammunition sales the way many other states do. Unlike Washington, for example, Louisiana, Nevada, and Texas prohibit the knowing sale of ammunition to violent offenders. 14 states prohibit the possession of ammunition by individuals prohibited from owning firearms, but not Washington state.
Current law does not require background checks for ammunition, even though dangerous individuals prohibited from owning firearms sometimes evade controls intended to prevent them from acquiring firearms, or refuse to surrender firearms as the law requires. The bill is sponsored by Rep. Amy Wallen, D-Kirkland.
Ferguson’s ammunition legislation:
- Prohibits violent felons and other individuals who cannot lawfully obtain firearms from purchasing or possessing ammunition.
- Makes it illegal for firearms dealers to knowingly sell ammunition to violent felons and other individuals prohibited from owning firearms.
- Prohibits dealers from knowingly selling ammunition to violent offenders and other individuals prohibited from owning firearms.
- Requires ammunition sellers to obtain a state firearms license, which costs $125. This change will not impact current firearms dealers.
- Requires background checks for all ammunition sales 30 days after the U.S. Department of Justice changes its rules and authorizes dealers to use the national instant criminal background check system, known as NICS, to initiate a check for a transfer of ammunition.
A survey conducted by Fox News found that 80 percent of respondents supported laws requiring background checks on purchasers of ammunition.
Rep. Amy Wallen — “Ammunition safety is a critical component of firearm safety that we can’t forget about. We can’t keep our communities safe if dangerous individuals who are prohibited from owning guns can still keep ammunition. It’s past time for Washington to catch up with states like Idaho, Louisiana, and Texas and prevent dangerous individuals from purchasing ammunition.”
In September, Ferguson joined 20 other attorneys general in a letter to Congressional leadership in support of the most recent bills to require federal background checks for ammunition. The bills, known as Jaime’s Law, are named after 14-year-old Jaime Guttenberg, who was among the 17 students and teachers killed in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in 2018.
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These proposed laws will do what they intend only when criminals, the disaffected, the asocial, and the insane decide to obey these laws.
Otherwise, all they do is adversely affect those people who already obey laws, and who do not plan to kill other people.
In other words, these proposed laws will be ineffective, address the wrong issues, and will not solve the perceived problems that they seek to address.
Restricting the tools used by killers will not end the killing. The killers will merely resort to other means.
This can be seen today in Great Britain, where, in the absence of guns, knives, machetes, and axes have become the mass-murder weapons of choice.
There exist proven, and even relatively inexpensive, social techniques which successfully address the violence problems which we face.
This is where our attention, our money, and our legislation, should be focussed.
You may find this essay in The Guardian of interest in this regard: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/10/us-gun-violence-thomas-abt
Steve, thank you for the link to Abt’s very good Guardian piece. This and other reports on focused deterrence make it seem very promising. However it doesn’t conflict with the Ferguson-Inslee proposals, which seek to solve a different problem. Most murder in this country is not mass murder – in fact, if you wanted to reduce gun death by removing guns from circulation, handguns would be the place to start, and as Abt points out focusing only on the guns is a mistake in some settings. The AG and the Gov propose to tackle a different problem, namely mass shooting. Sure, like you say, there have been knife attacks wounding and killing multiple victims here and elsewhere in the world. But no one, I repeat no one, has killed 59 people in a few minutes with a knife or an ax. Ain’t gonna happen. But someone accomplished that feat in Las Vegas a couple years ago, using the type of equipment that the proposed laws would make more difficult to obtain in Washington. I see no downside whatsoever.
Steve, we love your “Orcasional Musings”. Keep it up and give up the guns!
Can I side with the next generation and simply say:
“shut up and DO something.”
words words words words … BANG!
words worthless..
shut up and do SOMEthing
we don’t care about your “rights” anymore, just do something and improve it once it’s done.
If only criminals have guns it’ll be that much easier to catch them: have a gun? : go to jail. Easy. No more Rambo, no more Clint Eastwood, no more testosterone crazed rhetoric. No “right” to kill bambi. C’mon. Single-shot rifles is all you need, and go to the firing range to have fun, like going to a bowling alley. Do you carry your bowling ball around in case you want to roll one down the street?
No. same thing..
The Red Coats aren’t coming they can barely even pass Brexit, and if they do we’ll put tariffs on tea.. or whatever. But you get the idea. A ragtag bunch of Patriots aren’t ~ever~ going to enact political change, ever again, so put away your weaponry.
Patriotism of this sort is the exact equivalent of ISIS radicals attempting to enact a new Caliphate. Another macho fantasy. Shave your beard!
[BANG!: grow up] for the first time ever more women than men are going to college .. med school!
Give it up. try civilization..
The most hi-tech weapon in the human evolutionary arsenal.
Really Lief? “We don’t care about your rights anymore” so much for tolerance and the rule of law. Constitution in shreds, social contract broken, no need to reciprocate so what happens when no one stands up for your rights? We would do well to recall the words of Martin Niemöller (look it up).
The Second Amendment is on par with all other civil liberties, is it asking too much to “follow the rules” set forth in Article 5 as suggested by former Justice Stevens.
Yes, respectfully. To make a point:
TJ famously said in 1787:
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure..”
This kind of rhetoric, and the related interpretation of the Second Amendment relating gun ownership to Patriotic duty, is outdated.
There are now, in the 21st Century much more effective means of protecting the Republic – and protecting one’s person – than arming everyone .. yes, even with knives. And yes there are all sorts of insightful Public Health programs and legislative approaches, BUT
400 MILLION GUNS is not doing the job.
Our present state of rhetoric, all the romantic macho notions..
is not doing the job.
The Second Amendment in its current understanding is obsolete.
And it is l i t e r a l l y killing us: your “rights”
“We the people.. ”
our children..
and neighbors
yea: Enough.
Imagine the scene at ex presidential candidate Beto O Rourke; shouse the morning after his now famous comment at one of the Donkey fests “Damn right we’re gonna take away you A-15s.” when he found that horse’s head in his bed.
“”Nice little career,” came the follow up voicemail from an NRA lackey, “too bad if somethin should happen to it.”