— from San Juan County Deputy Scott Brennan —
I am Scott Brennan. I have been with your Sheriff’s Department for over 26 years. As the person who will have to enforce I-594 I have read it very carefully. Here is what it will mean to you. If passed I-594 covers ALL gun SALES and TRANSFERS (more on this later).
This means if you want to sell your long time neighbor John that shotgun he has always admired, you, John and the shotgun have catch the ferry to the mainland and drive to a licensed gun dealer in Anacortes or Mt. Vernon. You have to register the gun. John has to fill out background check papers. You have to pay a ‘reasonable fee’ (whatever the gun dealer wants) You then both go home and wait. Then 10 days later, you, John and the shotgun again catch the ferry back to the mainland and go back to the dealer, where John finally pays you and you get to hand him the shotgun. That’s SALES.
Now, we get into TRANSFERS. Sooo, the deputies want to surprise a retiring officer with a gun as a gift. The gun owner, the gun and the retiring officer again have to catch the ferry and go the mainland gun dealer. We have to register the gun and the ‘surprised officer’ has to do the background check paperwork. We again pay the ‘reasonable fee’. Then we all get to go home again and wait ten days. Then we again catch the ferry to the mainland, go back to the gun store and finally ‘surprise’ our coworker with his gift (TRANSFER).
Here is one better. I want to loan my friend Gary my break down shotgun for his motorcycle trip to Alaska. We, once again, have to go to the mainland, drive to Anacortes or Mt. Vernon, register the gun, Gary does the background check and we pay the ‘reasonable fee’. Ten days later we’re back and I get to ‘loan’ him the gun in front of the dealer. Gary has a great trip and comes back three weeks later. After he comes back, we all have to go back to the mainland, go back to the dealer and now I have to fill out the paperwork and pay the fee to be approved to get my own gun back.
As a law enforcement officer, I know this is completely un-enforceable. Unless a cop is hiding in your living room when you make the sale, gift or loan, no one will ever know it happened and it won’t help solve the problem. Sadly, both sides have wasted multi-millions of dollars on this un-workable Initiative. If this money had been put into mental health efforts or awareness and firearms safety training for parents and families, it might have produced the desired results. Don’t waste more funding. Vote No on I-594 and concentrate on helping people in crisis.
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If sales and transfers have to go through a registered gun dealer, does that mean that there are no registered gun dealers in San Juan County who could complete the required paperwork? Sounds like a multiple-island entrepreneurial opening . . .
We agree with Bea von Tobel PLUS we do NOT believe I-594 to be “unworkable”. Owning guns includes responsibility, including registration of guns when selling or transferring!
If Gary plans to take the shotgun on a land trip to Alaska, remind him of the border. Maybe suggest he leave the gun at home or do the required considerable paperwork at Canadian Customs.
To Bea, Frank and Jan,
The point was not that you will have to to go thru a gun dealer. The point is that it is UNENFORCABLE. As I said above, unless an officer is hiding in your living room when you do a gun sale, transfer or loan, there is no way to know it happened.
If the actual point is to save lives and to keep the mentally ill and troubled from causing harm, then the millions of dollars spent by both sides should have gone towards helping those people. The week I was researching this initiative the headline in the Seattle Times was that spending on the campaigns for this bill was approaching 10 million dollars. The next article down was that State Mental Health was out of money and was having to put patients back out on the street. Voting in a new bureaucracy and laws that will waste more money is not the answer.
Sixteen states and Washington, D.C. require background checks on all gun sales. Compared to the rest of the nation, those states see:
64% fewer guns sold that are used in crimes in other states
39% fewer police officer deaths from handguns
38% fewer women killed with handguns by intimate partners
17% fewer aggravated assaults with handguns
Since the early 1990s, the federal background check system has prevented over 2 million prohibited purchasers – felons, domestic abusers and the seriously mentally ill – from obtaining firearms. https://wagunresponsibility.org/law-enforcement/
Scott, It may be a difficult to enforce law in some areas but it is certainly time for all of us to take responsibility for wanting to have access to guns. I’m sorry you feel the way you do, but the majority of folks (especially here in the Islands) feel lives are more important than convenience or easy enforcement. The statistics say it all. Merry
Gun registration is the first step towards gun Confiscation. The Right To Bear Arms is a protected Right under our Constitution! It pains me to observe our once great Nation of Courageous, Independent People succumb to the Fear Porn propagated by DC. The vast majority of gun owners are responsible, sane and caring individuals. This Initiative is an Infringement of our Right to Bear Arms, guaranteed under the Fourth Amendment of our Bill of Rights!
Look at the Freedoms we have lost since the Patriot Act was passed with nary a whimper from our citizens! Our Rights guaranteed under our Constitution have been and continue to be eroded with our acquiescence. Arise Lazarus! Come Forth from the Tomb of Fear!
Sincerely, Spirit Eagle
Since when does making a law “hard to enforce” a reason to abandon the law? As a police officer, are you saying that busting a heroin sale in a private home would be difficult, so instead heroin should be legalized? Same for domestic violence? Your job is to enforce the laws. If you have trouble with that, perhaps you need to change jobs.
The opposing comments all miss the point made as well as the larger picture. Money spent on this and simular laws has little or no impact on violence, death or injury in the big picture. Mental health and violence in video games, movies and TV are the direct causes of results you seek to affect. Because as stated above most will not comply with an unenforcible law there will be little change. There are more guns in the U.S. than people. It would take a century of two just ot get those into the system. Add in the guns that are then smuggled into the country through our open borders and you don’t even put a small dent in it. Passing laws and spending money in a way that does not address the problem does not save lives and actually get even more people injured and killed. The idea that we have to begin somewhere only works if we head in the right direction.
Oh Don– you have fallen for a right wing meme that is totally ginned up.
“..violence in video games, movies and TV are the direct causes of results you seek to affect” is so easily debunked. Other countries have access to the exact same video games, movies and TV with practically immeasurable gun deaths = see the statistics here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
The difference is the number of guns available and how they are regulated!
Spirit Eagle– it is the 2nd amendment and it reads “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”
Which part of “well regulated” are we not understanding?
I am voting YES on I-594 to uphold the constitution!!
This reactionary anti people Supreme Court said that individuals have the unlimited right to own guns. You would expect nothing less from this court. If Sandra Day O’Conner had not resigned I doubt that the court would have made the same decision.
A well regulated militia is made up of private citizens (non-military) baring their privately held weapons. A militia is comprised of armed private citizens who will stand for and defend the Constitutional rights of all the citizens of the United States of America. It is not a government regulated military. A well regulated militia is well regulated outside the oversight of the federal government as a check and balance to the federal government. It applies to states rights and individual rights, which defines “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” in fact, when “all” statistics are included and weighted, the evidence shows that communities with well educated and armed private citizens have less violence crime committed against them than those with massive gun control measures. More arm and educate. less government control and cost with adverse and/or contrary results.
Regulated by who then? You?
Exactly WHICH evidence shows that “communities with well educated and armed private citizens have less violence crime committed against them than those with massive gun control measures” — That is an absolutely unprovable statement pulled from the far reaches of someone’s anus.
Maybe you should check with the parents at Sandy Hook or Columbine or or or or —Where does the Constitution say anything about “outside of the oversight of the government”?
Your views make it even more important for intelligent people to pay attention to this issue and make sure YOU are regulated!
Sandy Hook? Columbine? How ’bout the Colorado movie-theater and the Santa Barbara killings?
None of those outrages would have been averted by a law like I-594. None.
In the Sandy Hook and Columbine cases, the guns used were stolen. In the other two, the guns were purchased legally by persons who passed a 594-like background check.
And speaking of statistics “pulled from the far reaches of someone’s anus,” what reliable source gave us these:
“64% fewer guns sold that are used in crimes in other states,”
“39% fewer police officer deaths from handguns,”
“38% fewer women killed with handguns by intimate partners,” and
“17% fewer aggravated assaults with handguns”?
They all come from some anti-gun, anti-gun-owner propaganda machine. They certainly do not come from the carefully-compiled annual FBI statistics.
I’m with Deputy Brennan. He’s a cop, so he knows what the real statistics are. He also has a better line on how the money should be spent.
The attempt to pass I-594 is a complete waste of both private and public money.
First, I am not against background checks (almost all gun sales go through the background checks required by law now)but 594 is just bad legislation. If you want people to comply with a new law you make it easy, affordable, or at least enforceable if the object is to have an effective law. 594 does none of those things and as Deputy Brennan points out it does the opposite by making something that could be simple ridiculously complicated to the point that few, if any, will comply. Background checks, fine, but vote no on 594.
My understanding of our current Federal and State firearm laws is that one can transfer a rifle to a third party without any paperwork involved (and 14 year olds can own a rifle provided they have passed a gun safety course). Handguns do require paperwork, though as Scott pointed out, many ‘transfers’ are in the form of private, unrecorded sales. If you sell your handgun to someone and it is found to have been used in a crime, guess who’s going to be contacted by the police?
I was surprised to read that police have to undergo background checks when purchasing firearms; do they not have the equivalent of a concealed carry permit, which allows the bearer currently to buy guns without having to undergo a background check?
The clause in our Constitution regarding the right of a citizen militia to bear arms may have had more to do with our ancestor’s view of King George than anything relevant today. And I think you can look to the percentage of firearm deaths in countries like, say, Canada (where owning a handgun is relatively rare) are lower than in the USA. My own view is, adult citizens should have the right to own firearms, provided they have not been arrested for violent activities. Oh, and don’t forget the number of people (including children) who are killed or injured by firearms each year.