Voting begins this week to decide a long-brewing duel of ballot measures involving guns — one to require background checks on the buyers involved in nearly every weapon sale in the state, the other to block expansion of existing law.
In all, more than $10 million is being spent in the nation’s only electoral combat between backers of gun rights and gun control this year.
Most of the money, and nearly all the attention, is on Initiative 594, which would expand state law to require background checks on private sales of firearms, such as transactions conducted online and at gun shows.
Just above this measure on the ballot is Initiative 591, which would bar the state from enacting rules on background checks that exceed the requirements of federal law.
In other words, it would prevent everything that I-594 sets out to do.
State and federal laws require background checks to buy a pistol and other types of guns from federally licensed firearms dealers but are silent on purchases from private sellers.
Initiative 594 sponsors say that the unregulated private market is where criminals and those barred from buying a weapon — because of a mental illness or a domestic-violence protective order — do their shopping.
Closing what they deem a loophole in the law will make it harder for felons and other potentially dangerous people to evade a background checks and obtain guns, said Geoff Potter of the Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility, the committee conducting the pro-594 campaign.
If passed, I-594 won’t prevent people from buying a gun online or at a private gun show, said Kristin Meilicke, of Edmonds, at an Edmonds City Council hearing on Tuesday.
“It does not move us closer to outlawing guns,” Meilicke said. “It is not the final answer to gun violence. It is part of the solution.” The council later that evening voted to endorse I-594.
Proponents of the other measure say passage of I-594 would, indeed, be a step closer to an outright ban.
I-591 would curb unnecessary intrusion of government into the private dealings of citizens, maintaining balance between privacy rights and public safety, said Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Bellevue-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and a spokesman for the campaign for I-591 and against I-594.
“591 basically defends us so that we get the protections that we need if there was a background check system that was changed,” he said. “Basically, it is a defensive measure.”
Washington is home to a lot of gun owners and a lot of guns.
With a population of roughly 7 million, by the end of last year Washington had 449,532 people with active licenses to carry concealed weapons, according to the state Department of Licensing.
In 2013, the state recorded 193,874 sales and transfers of pistols. By August of this year, another 100,000 sales and transfers had been reported.
Meanwhile, a seeming proliferation of deadly shootings across the country, and in Washington, sowed the seeds for this electoral confrontation.
State lawmakers tried and failed in 2013 to pass an expanded background-check law. Disappointed proponents immediately set out to achieve their goal by initiative.
At about the same time, opponents responded with their own effort. Last fall, sponsors of I-594 submitted 346,834 signatures and backers of I-591 turned in 349,860, and both easily qualified for the ballot.
The case for I-594
Initiative 594 is described as a means to reducing the potential for gun-related violence by making sure the current system of background checks applies to sales and transfers at gun shows, online and between unlicensed private individuals.
It contains exceptions, such as when guns are given as gifts between family members or the sale involves an antique firearm. It also creates new crimes for violations of some of its requirements.
If it passes, Washington would join California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C., with so-called universal background check requirements, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
“It is a simple common-sense approach,” said Cheryl Stumbo, who has worked to reduce gun violence since she was wounded in the shooting at the Jewish Federation office in Seattle in 2006.
Applying background checks uniformly to private sales will have the best chance of saving the most number of lives, she said, because it will prevent some people who shouldn’t have guns from getting them.
“We make sure that people that we all agree as a society should not have their hands on guns don’t have a super easy way to do it,” she said.
Opponents say the initiative isn’t simple and would be more restrictive than any universal background check law in the country. The devil is in the measure’s many pages of text.
“Why does it take 18 pages to close the gun-show loophole?” Ross Dimmick, of Edmonds, said at the City Council meeting.
What’s particularly problematic to foes is the initiative’s treatment of transfers.
State law considers a transfer to be the culmination of a transaction between a licensed dealer and a gun buyer. Initiative 594 would add a new section of law expanding the definition.
In some instances, it would require that a background check be done by a licensed dealer before someone could loan a weapon to a relative or friend. Failure to do so would be a crime.
Phil Shave, executive director of the Washington Arms Collectors, said such language could put many people on the wrong side of the law. He said that initiative sponsors should have followed the lead of Colorado and California and exempt such loans from checks if they are only for short periods of time.
“594 is so extreme that we do not believe that legitimate law-abiding gun owners can abide by it,” Shave said.
Rep. Marko Liias, D-Everett, who has campaigned for I-594, said there is a “bright line” as to when the law would apply.
No check is required if two people go hunting and one hands a gun to the other to use, he said for example. If a person wants to loan a gun to a relative or friend so they can go off hunting for the weekend or target shooting for the day, the two would need to go to a licensed dealer beforehand and complete a background check, Liias said.
The purpose is to ensure the person borrowing the weapon wouldn’t be barred from having it because of a domestic violence protective order or serious mental illness, he said.
“When you give it to somebody and they drive off, we want to make sure that person doesn’t have one of these problems that could flag them for being a public safety risk,” Liias said.
The case for I-591
John Amrine, of Sultan, can trace his family roots to the Revolutionary War and thinks that family history inspires him to defend his Second Amendment right to own a gun.
In his case, about 15 guns are locked up in a safe, out of reach of his children.
He’s purchased them at gun shows, like one in Monroe he attended in September, and from retailers like Cabela’s. He’s got a concealed pistol license.
He follows the rules yet he passionately supports I-591 to prevent the slew of new regulations that I-594 would impose. An expanded background-check law is a stride toward creation of a gun-registration database, he said.
Like many 591 supporters, he fears registration will eventually lead to confiscation.
“I know the anti-gun people want to take our guns away,” he said. “They want to make it as difficult as they can for you and I to go out and buy a weapon. It drives a stake between me and my right to bear arms.”
Potter, of the pro-594 campaign, disagreed, saying that law-abiding gun owners understand that with basic rights come basic responsibilities.
“The principle behind 594 is that we make it harder for criminals and other dangerous people to evade a background check and obtain guns while also respecting Second Amendment rights,” he said. “There’s no evidence in any other state of the kind of harms our opponents talk about, but there is plenty of evidence of felons using the loophole to obtain guns.”
With ballots getting mailed this week, campaigning will heat up and the number of television and radio ads will multiply.
The Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility, the pro-I-594 committee, had racked up contributions and pledges totaling $9.3 million as of Friday.
More than half that money is from a handful of super-wealthy people.
The single largest contributor, at $1.5 million, is Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun control group formed and funded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Other big donors include venture capitalist Nicholas Hanauer ($1.385 million), Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, ($1.05 million) and former Microsoft chief executive officer Steve Ballmer and his wife, Connie ($1.08 million).
The forces behind I-591 had recorded nearly $1.5 million in donations as of Oct. 10, according to reports filed online with the state Public Disclosure Commission.
Protect Our Gun Rights had raised most of it, $1.1 million, and spent a large chunk on signature-gathering last year. Its primary donors are the groups led by Gottlieb and Shave.
The National Rifle Association has set up its own political committee and had spent $192,000 as of last week, mostly on billboards and ads.
What if both win?
What happens if both measures pass is a question for which there is no clear answer.
Lawmakers, by a two-thirds vote in both chambers, could harmonize the two new laws or adopt one initiative and repeal the other, said Dave Ammons, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s Office. Or lawmakers could drop them in the laps of Supreme Court justices, he said.
Washington voters have never approved conflicting or potentially conflicting initiatives on the same ballot. In 2010, when faced with dueling initiatives on liquor privatization, voters rejected both.
Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.
Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623; jcornfield@heraldnet.com.
I-591
Initiative Measure No. 591 would prohibit government agencies from confiscating guns or other firearms from citizens without due process, or from requiring background checks on firearm recipients unless a uniform national standard is required.
Yes: www.yeson591.org
No: www.noon591.com
I-594
Initiative Measure No. 594 would apply currently used criminal and public safety background checks by licensed dealers to all firearm sales and transfers, including gun-show and online sales, with specific exceptions.
Yes: www.wagunresponsibility.org
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