Washington State Voters Set To Approve Universal Background Checks For Gun Purchases
Two gun control initiatives will be on the ballot for voters in Washington State, but its the one that would expand background checks that looks likely to win:
Do you want expanded background checks for gun purchases?
Do you not want expanded background checks for gun purchases?
Those two competing questions will be on the ballot in Washington on Nov. 4. But they won’t be stated so clearly, and earlier this year it looked like voters in the state would say “yes” to both (which doesn’t make sense). Now, however, polls suggest voters have sorted things out and will choose to expand background checks.
Initiative 591 (I-591) would prevent background checks for gun purchases except when required by the federal government.Initiative 594 (I-594) would ensure background checks for all gun purchases, including those conducted online and at gun shows. I-594 looks like it will pass; I-591 looks like it will fail.
The Elway Poll — conducted by Elway Research, a longtime andhighly rated pollster — has been tracking voter sentiment throughout the campaign. In its first poll of the campaign, in April, support for I-591 was at 55 percent. Support for I-594 was at 72 percent. Since both measures had majority support, there was talk that the courts would need to intercede after the election to settle the outcome.
But the pro-background-checks measure was polling 17 percentage points higher than the anti- position, indicating a stronger base of support. The Elway Poll smartly asked a follow-up question that probed voters on whether they were in favor of “more extensive background checks for gun sales” or whether they favored “keeping the background check system as it is.” The share in favor of more extensive background checks was 62 percent in April, 61 percent in July and 59 percent in October.
Voters clearly wanted more extensive background checks. Anti-background-checks proponents had to rely on continued confusion.
(…)
The campaign, however, has helped to clarify each initiative. Support for I-594 has settled in the latest Elway Poll around where the explicit background-check question suggested it should be — about 60 percent. Meanwhile, I-591 is at 39 percent. Those two numbers, of course, add up to 99 percent; voters have caught on to the different initiatives, and their stated policy preferences match their voting intentions.
If these numbers hold up, and its worth noting that the support level for I-594 is roughly comparable to national polling on the issue of expanded background checks, then Washington State would be set to expand background checks significantly, and that could be the impetus for similar moves across the country that could potentially undercut the ability of groups like the National Rifle Association to stop legislation at the legislative level. This would be especially true when it comes to issues like background checks which seem to have near universal support even in states where gun rights are strongly protected.
Logical, rational, widely-supported – even by gun owners – and rejected by the NRA.
Why?
Because contra the NRA brainwashing, the NRA has nothing whatsoever to do with the 2d Amendment, it is the agitprop division of the gun manufacturers, whose real concern is simply profit. The gun manufacturers don’t care where their profit comes from – hunters, rapists, child murderers, it’s all the same cha-ching! to them.
A subset of gun owners, the hardcore, fanatical and effectively brain-dead NRA-bots, fall into line, spouting transparently false drivel, raging like unmedicated mental patients about the tree of liberty and revealing their cringe-inducing macho fantasies, all in the bizarre belief that spreading fear is spreading freedom. But of course they’re just dupes, too stupid to realize they’re in the business of protecting the profits of rich and ruthless men.
Doesn’t sound so clear to me. Any firearm arranged to be purchased online must be delivered via a licensed gun dealer, who will require a background check before they make that delivery.
Private sales between individuals, such as those that don’t undergo a background check at gun shows, currently do not require a background check but for that to include “online” sales the firearm would have to delivered in person to the purchaser.
Come on, admit it, you were looking in the mirror when you wrote that?
@JKB:
Online sales that cross state borders have to be delivered through a dealer, who only conducts a NICS check prior to delivery. An online sale within the state could conceivably just result in one person shipping the weapon to another person.
What this sounds like to me is an additional, much more intensive background check implemented at the state level, a la Maryland. I can’t say that I think that’s a bad thing.
@HarvardLaw92:
It would also apply the background check to areas that the current Federal law doesn’t apply such as gun shows and private sales. I don’t see the problem with that, personally, and I don’t think you can really make an argument that it would violate the 2nd Amendment. Indeed, I doubt that the 5 Justices who were the majority in Heller and McDonald would be in agreement on that issue.
@JKB:
Spoken like a true NRA-bot. Do you make the robot hand gestures when you regurgitate your programmed responses? Because that would be funny to see.
The questions on the ballot were back to back, and a little confusing, as the one requiring the background checks had more publicity. Anyway, voted No/Yes, so hopefully the voters get things right and pass the universal background checks.
@Doug Mataconis:
Given Scalia’s opinion in Heller, I’d have to agree, but then again I was never amongst the crowd that thinks (for reasons passing understanding) that the 2A is an unfettered license to carry whatever, whenever, however one wishes.
The nimrods see what they want to see.
@Doug Mataconis:
The question is whether the state will resisit the temptation to say no to every gun purchase. If the government has to say yes before you purchase a gun, the government can always just say no. Look at the hand gun permitting issues in the District of Columbia where one has to go to the government and give a specific reason for wanting a carry permit. The DC government openly plans to rejecting all applications until some federal judge tells them to obey the law.
@superdestroyer:
Paranoid delusions abound in your bigoted little noggin’, don’t they?
According to a Quinnipiac poll done in July 92% of gun owners, and even 86% of the
Stupid PartyRepublicans, support background checks prior to gun sales.Seriously…92% of gun owners. Who in the fvck is the NRA representing? And who is Congress knuckling under too? It’s the gun industry…not gun owners.
Police officials think background checks are absolutely imperative:
Yet here’s ol’ JKB and Super-Dooper (and who knows what other wingnut will happen along) fighting against what everyone else thinks is common sense.
Who’da thunk it???
@C. Clavin:
Yep. Rights my ass, the NRA is all about money. A dollar from a school shooter spends just as well as a dollar from a duck hunter.
@michael reynolds:
It really makes you wonder about all the NRA dupes commenting on here, doesn’t it? I mean…it’s not like the gun lobby is lining their pockets. They’re just being used for the fools they are. Kinda sad, really.
@michael reynolds:
One casual glance at the composition of their board should make that much evident to anyone, but you can’t fix stupid. It’s a waste of effort to even try.
Unfortunately I-594 isn’t so simple as only expanding background checks for gun sales (most of the local ads claim it is about “closing the gun show loophole”). I-594 also applies to loaning a firearm to someone, with the operative word being “transfer.” This leads to the absurd result that a father can’t let his 18-year old daughter shoot his shotgun without a background check (yes, it applies to shotguns too, not just handguns, but there is an exemption for persons under 18, and spouses). Or two friends can’t swap guns at a firing range.
This is an unintended consequence the drafters of the initiative didn’t think about, turning ordinary people into felons (regardless of whether they are prosecuted, but prosecutorial discretion is a topic for another day).
FYI, The WA legislature cannot change passed initiatives for two years, though they might be able to fiddle with the definition of “transfer.”
@RGardner:
What if the daughter or the friend is a felon, or mentally ill but the parent / friend refuses to accept the diagnosis?
@RGardner:
It’s better to expect the legislators to fix the definition of transfer than actually have to pass the law in it’s entirety. There are similar issues surrounding most initiatives to decriminalize marijuana, but these are two areas where it’s better to force the change on the legislature.
@David M:
Seems that Gardner may want to pay particular attention to this paragraph:
This kind of ballot initiative (this one specifically I happen to support) comes about when state legislatures continue to avoid difficult issues.
Ideally, a proposal such as this would go through legislative hearings and be thoroughly vetted. These days legislators run from issues like this, therefore, as in California, both citizens and special interest groups mobilize and petition to get these issues directly to the voters.
I think the election will be close. Western Washington, in the urban corridor from Olympia and Tacoma to Seattle will probably vote for it while Eastern Washington (east of the Cascades) will vote against it.
@RGardner:
Welcome to the wonderful world of initiatives, where poorly drafted and ill considered lumps of text become legislation! No discussion in committee, no one looking for all the consequences, just send a short summary to the voters and see what happens.
Unfortunately, when the legislature repeatedly refuses to do things that the public at large supports, we get initiatives to attempt to fix this. And these initiatives often have something terrible.
So, if you happen to think that you should be able to loan out guns willy-nilly, and are upset that you won’t be able to, thank the legislature for never addressing something that has incredibly high support, and thank the NRA for putting the fear of gun enthusiasts into the legislature.
I voted yes.
@HarvardLaw92:
Gifts between immediate family members? Really?
Well, that sucks. “Damn, Jethro, that government flunky won’t let you get a gun just cuz’ you been pistol-whippin’ that geek? Don’t they know he was askin’ for it? Here, have one of my guns!”
(Actual Eastern Washington vernacular used in above quote)
Background check’s are better than nothing, I suppose, but they aren’t much of a solution. Background checks are rooted in the basically right-wing fiction that we can isolate who are the “bad guys” who want to use their guns for evil, as opposed to those “good guys” who just want their guns for “self-defense”.
Background checks would do nothing to prevent many shootings, who are committed by people with no previous criminal record or history of violence or mental illness.
What we really need to do is apply the logic of cap-and-trade to guns. Gun ownership has a negative externality, so make people buy an annual permit for every gun they possess. This will force people to evaluate how much benefit they actually get out of their firearm collection. If it’s really worth it to them, they can have all the “assault weapons” they want, they just have to pay the penalty. If it’s not really worth it to them, they will get rid of their guns.
Looks like Bill Gates is writing the obituary before he’s killed his victim. Who did he find to write this screed anyway?
This initiative is far from decided. If King County finds enough votes stored in somebody’s trunk to pass it then this poorly conceived law will be contested in Court.
Too many people will become felons if it stands.
The effect here would be to put every single gun sale go through a licensed dealer. A dealer who can be readily coerced by the government who has the power to yank their dealer’s license at any time, for any reason.
And this isn’t paranoia, it’s reality. Back during Fast & Furious, a LOT of the gun dealers involved wanted to refuse the gun sales to obvious straw buyers, in accordance with the law — but were instructed by the ATF to make sales they knew were bad.
And let’s look at the kinds of sales that would be outlawed by this law.
Uncle Bob’s getting on in years, and wants to sell his hunting rifle to his nephew, Pete, who’s a retired Marine. Nope.
My neighbor Mary, who’s a nurse, is being stalked by an ex-boyfriend, would like to buy my old Colt revolver to protect herself at home.
My college roommate Dave, who I’ve known for 20 years and has never been in trouble with the law, lives in a rural area and his neighbor spotted a rattlesnake, wants to buy my shotgun.
In all cases, each of these sales would be illegal UNLESS we tracked down a gun dealer (who has the access to the background check database) and got them to sign off on the sale — for a reasonable fee, of course, and presuming that the dealer in question isn’t leaned on by the ATF to not oversee such sales.
And on the other hand… just how many of these mass shootings have been made with legally-purchased guns, by their buyers? How many of these shootings would have been prevented by this kind of law?
The vast majority of mass shootings (and murders in general) are carried out by people who did not legally obtain their guns. So measures like this are like going after speeders by putting a tax on people who buy high-performance cars.
@carter: “Too many people will become felons if it stands.”
Or they could, you know, choose to follow the law.
One issue is that a person who is taking certain medications or going for various psychological counseling would not be able to purchase a gun. This could include counseling for marital problems, or a person seeking career counseling, even a professional coaching session.
I am not sure if this new proposed law applies to all guns or just automatic, high capacity rifles. Certainly rifles used for sport, hunting, competition, and collecting should be exempt. Those are mainly bolt action rifles, muzzle loaders, and shotguns.
I have an old bolt action WW I rifle from Poland (back then that country had a different name). Something like a Mauser. It is in great condition, has no firing pin, and I have never used it. Collectibles should be exempt from any of these so called gun control measures.
And I can guarantee you this: no gang member or drug lord is ever going to undergo a background check. What they need are criminal control laws ! Keep violent criminals locked up !
@wr: Or they could, you know, choose to follow the law.
What a BRILLIANT solution! Let’s use that on voter ID laws! And immigration laws!
If only Obama had thought of that before he decided to rewrite ObamaCare (you know, “the law of the land”) and just stick whatever dates he felt like on the various provisions…
@Jenos Idanian #13:
Oh, I agree this law won’t stop much. But that’s not the point.
My strategy is similar to the president’s strategy: contain, isolate, degrade, destroy.
Puncture the myth of NRA invulnerability. Stigmatize gun ownership as a public health nightmare with gun owners as the carriers. Drive down sales, weakening the NRA. Ultimately make gun owners civilly liable for any use of their gun, push schools to require gun-owning parents to self-identify, pass popular and reasonable measures such as strict enforcement of safe storage and push smart guns.
I wouldn’t even try to touch the 2d Amendment. I would just make gun-cultists socially unacceptable, ostracize and isolate them, and wait for them to die off. Anyone who still needed to shoot a rattlesnake could have a gun, which of course would be about a 99% reduction from where we are now.
@michael reynolds: @michael reynolds:
Background checks, in and of themselves, are not objectionable to most people. It’s the implementation that worries many of us. The way the Manchin-Toomey bill was written, for instance, would amount to de-facto registration, which historically has been useful for only one purpose, viz. confiscation (Canada is now scrapping their long-gun registration, for example, since it cost huge amounts of money but has never once been instrumental in solving a crime).
Make a system that private individuals can use when selling a gun, with no records kept (and real teeth for violations of this), and you are fine. Bills of this kind have been rejected by pro-disarmament legislators before on the grounds that they did not include adequate “record keeping,” i.e., registration. Which shows what the actual goal is pretty clearly, doesn’t it?
Also, like the Manchin-Toomey bill, the definition of “transfer” is broad and vague in I-594 (e.g., what about loaning your cousin a gun for target shooting?), and the exceptions narrow. More room for selective enforcement and innocent people becoming “criminals” without doing anything wrong.
And, of course there is the fact that no measure of this type has ever been shown to have any effect on gun violence, or crime more generally. So, we create a huge expensive bureaucracy, place additional cost and time burdens on lawful citizens, all for a measure that has never worked before? On the faith that it will somehow work this time?
It’s not at all insane to oppose I-594. Unless of course the goal is exactly to make it more difficult, expensive, and risky for law-abiding people to own firearms. But if that’s the goal, why not just say so?
@Paul W:
Can you spell that out? On its face, the no-records-kept proviso would seem to vitiate the force of any penalty regime.
@Paul W:
Manchin-Toomey actually would have made a national gun registry less likely. Kind of blows apart your entire argument.
I see a bunch more wingnuts who disagree with 92% of gun owners and police officials and agree with the NRA, a shill for the gun manufacturers, have shown up.
Welcome, dupes.
@Paul W: “. The way the Manchin-Toomey bill was written, for instance, would amount to de-facto registration, which historically has been useful for only one purpose, viz. confiscation (Canada is now scrapping their long-gun registration, for example, since it cost huge amounts of money but has never once been instrumental in solving a crime).”
Wait — would that be Canada’s long gun registration which has never led to confiscation?
It’s amazing that your NRA-brainwashing is so strong that you can write that without seeing the obvious contradiction.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
More delusion.
@C. Clavin: Actually, that was the only one that had a shred of reality to it — I did have a college roommate named Dave. We haven’t been in touch in… sheesh, about 20 years, and I have no idea if he lives anywhere rattlesnakes. However, if I owned a gun, and he wanted it,I would have no worries about selling it to him.
Amazing. Out of three hypotheticals, you zeroed in on the one that had the slightest basis in reality and call it a complete fabrication. You really have an astonishing gift for being incredibly, completely, totally stupid.
As one of the resident “NRA bots”, I have no problem with expanded background checks, so long as there is no gun registry involved. The current background checks haven’t impinged on gun freedom; I see no reason why the new ones would. I also don’t think they’ll do much: according to the Justice Department, less than 10% of guns used in crime were purchased legally.
@Hal_10000:
But that presents the same problem as I addressed to Paul W. upthread. What would a record of a background check be other than an entry in a “registry”? And if no record of the background check need be made, the notion of (enforceable) background checks is empty of content.
@C. Clavin:
If you look at the amicus briefs made by progressive organizations during the Heller arguments in front of the Supreme Court, there is nothing paranoind about it. Progressives really do want to create a policy where the government can say no to virtually everyone when it comes to gun ownership.
@Gustopher:
I suspect that as the U.S. moves to being a one party state dominated by the Democratic Party that initiative and referendum laws will be recinded. The last thing a one party state will want is a way for voters to go around the clouts, power brokers,and backroom dealers.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
Sorry… It’s just hard to believe you actually got accepted to a community college anywhere.
@Jenos Idanian #13: So you wouldn’t have any problem selling a gun to someone you haven’t had any contact with in 20 years and you still don’t see the point of background checks?
@Jenos Idanian #13:
Or that it could have so little impact.
@beth: Those were hypotheticals. One of them drew a single aspect from my own life.
But let’s try another. These are facts. I have a friend whom I have known for almost three decades — his entire adult life. He’s never had any trouble with the law, nor any mental health issues. He had to pass a government background check for his job, and passed that.
Now for the hypothetical part. He moves his family to a rural area, and finds out that there are rattlesnakes on his property. I own a shotgun, and he asks if he can have it. I give it to him, as I have no real use for it more important than helping him protect himself and his family.
Should I be allowed to do that, or should we go find some licensed gun dealer who will, for a fee, sign off on the gift? A gun dealer whose livelihood depends on the good graces of the ATF, who have already been shown to be bad actors in dealing with gun dealers?
@Jenos Idanian #13: But again, you’re moving the goalposts and changing what you said. You said you would have no problem selling a gun to someone you hadn’t seen or had contact with in 20 years, NOT someone you knew well. It’s amazing how you do this over and over and don’t think anyone will notice.
@beth: beth, stop being such a git.
When I first brought up the hypothetical, I specified that I’d known the other party for 20 years. For my own personal amusement, I named him after someone I knew about 20 years ago. The only reason I shared the private joke was that Cliffy, as he can be reliably counted upon to do, said something incredibly stupid and wrong.
But all that is completely irrelevant to the argument put forth in this proposed law. Under that law, both examples would be illegal. Under that law, there are almost no circumstances where a firearm can pass from one person to another without someone licensed by the government to give their approval.
Some of those exceptions are spelled out. The examples I cited are not covered by them. In that second case, where I refined my example (because Cliffy was his usual dumbass self, and I foolishly didn’t ignore him), should that transfer be illegal?
Under this proposed law, it would be. I don’t think it should.
The law already treats gun sales much like car sales — you wanna do it with your own property, fine. But if you start making a business out of it, then they want their say (and, more importantly, their cut). I think that’s just fine. The majority of gun crimes are committed with weapons that the criminals didn’t obtain legally already, so it’s a solution in search of a problem.
@Jenos Idanian #13: Well nice try but it’s not at all what you said. You can throw up a few paragraphs of blah blah to try and confuse the subject but you were very clear about what you wrote.
@beth: Well nice try but it’s not at all what you said.
You wanna show me the rule that says “you get one and only one chance to put forth a hypothetical scenario?” Or do you want to continue to demonstrate that you’re a pedantic and worthless git who is far more interested in finding excuses to avoid an actual discussion of issues?
I think you’ve already given your answer, but I’ll give you one more chance to discuss the issue at hand and not hide behind make-believe rules…
@Jenos Idanian #13: Your point was that gun sales between friends and relatives shouldn’t be subject to background checks – presumably due to the relationship between buyer and seller. Fine. But then you clearly state you would have no problem selling to someone you’ve had no contact with in 20 years. You might as well sell to strangers out of the trunk of your car. It makes no sense. That’s all. And that will be the last of it since I have no desire to further discuss anything with someone who immediately turns to name calling when things don’ t go his way. My neighbor’s got a two year old that I can do that with.
@beth: Your point was that gun sales between friends and relatives shouldn’t be subject to background checks – presumably due to the relationship between buyer and seller. Fine. But then you clearly state you would have no problem selling to someone you’ve had no contact with in 20 years.
If that’s how you have to lie to yourself so you don’t have to actually discuss the matter at hand, then so be it. If that one example has you so disturbed and rattled and all aflutter that you can’t bring yourself to discuss it further, if you’re so delicate and such a hothouse flower, then I won’t risk upsetting you any further and endanger you of having a possibly fatal case of the vapors.
BTW, that old roommate? I haven’t been in contact with him in about 20 years, but I did a quick Googling. He’s a married minister with several kids now, and he’s pastor of a church that’s a bit older than the United States itself. So I think he’d be a safe person to trust.
@superdestroyer:
So what? This does not violate the specif and well documented intentions of the founders WRT to the 2nd amendment and are well within the legitimate state interest of insuring that we don’t have armed assholes running around and that we can charge those who ignore that requirement with a crime.
@Rick DeMent: Show ANY OTHER Constitutional right that one has to give the government a reason they approve of before you exercise it.
And just how many people are going to say “I’m going to go shoot up a school because my Mommy didn’t love me enough” on the application form?