Washington becomes the 10th state to restrict semiautomatic possession through a stupid feature list.
The House concurred with a floor amendment to House Bill 1240 that was added in the Senate, voting 56-42 to approve it on April 19. The amendment will allow gun manufacturers to sell inventory already in stock prior to Jan. 1, 2023, and only to out-of-state clientele for 90 days after the bill goes into effect. So vendors aren’t totally hosed, just mostly.
The bill does not ban the possession of assault weapons and allows for ownership by law enforcement and military service members, with an exception in cases of inheritance. So the guns already there can apparently stay, meaning the risk profile in the state doesn’t change at all.
In state and national organizations like the NSSF have vowed to challenge the bill in court, arguing the ban violates the second amendment. The Second Amendment Foundation filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday challenging the ban, asking for preliminary and permanent injunctions. Assault weapon bans are still under federal scrutiny in the courts and with federal court momentum who knows how long this will remain enacted. Illinois is currently facing several suits and its fate is unknown too, the Chicago led state passed theirs in January.
“The state has enacted a flat prohibition on the manufacture, sale, import and distribution of many types of firearms, inaccurately labeled as ‘assault weapons,’ which are owned by millions of ordinary citizens across the country,” Second Amendment Foundation founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb said in a prepared statement. “In the process, the state has criminalized a common and important means of self-defense, the modern semiautomatic rifle. The state has put politics ahead of constitutional rights, and is penalizing law-abiding citizens while this legislation does nothing to arrest and prosecute criminals who misuse firearms in defiance of all existing gun control laws. It is absurd.”
