In matters of reducing crime and saving lives, the best politics is no politics.
Eighty percent of Washington voters (read: workaday folk immune to NRA strong-arming) support criminal background checks for all gun sales. In matters vital to community life, laws that inform whether a convicted wife beater can manipulate Washington’s legal sieve to get his paws on a semi-automatic weapon, for example, the judgment of the people, not the political class, should triumph.
In Olympia, gun-shy lawmakers ducked efforts to promote public safety and rein in gun violence. Background checks couldn’t even eke out a floor vote in the Democratic-controlled House. Politics of the I-don’t-want-the-NRA-on-my-tail variety trumped the public interest.
This week, troops of signature gatherers will begin the long slog to collect 325,000 signers for an initiative to the Legislature. I-594 will require lawmakers to decide whether transfers and private sales — including those at gun shows or over the Internet — go through the same background check as sales with a licensed gun dealer. If legislators slink away, Washingtonians will vote on I-594 in November of 2014.
Bad guys know how to cop guns, opponents argue. Indeed they do, and Washington makes it very easy. Just go to a gun show or to an unlicensed dealer. I-594 closes that criminal-check loophole and makes it tougher for bad guys. And when purchasers comply, the sale will be exempt from sales tax. The good guys (not to mention the public more broadly) benefit.
I-594 is compelling and airtight, building in reasonable exceptions, including gifts between immediate family members, antique firearms and loaners for hunting.
Criminal justice is paramount. The suspect in the June shooting death of 15-year old Molly Conley was nabbed thanks to smart police work and a sales record created during a background check. If the suspect had gone through the web or to a gun show, there wouldn’t be a paper trail. I-594 will help law enforcement do their job and lasso criminals by creating sales records for all transactions.
Gun violence in America, specifically the Newtown child massacre last year, generated a latticework of fix-something brainstorms, from arming teachers to repealing the Second Amendment. Arguments, both ad hominem and rational, cross-hatch the public square.
Washington witnessed the 2008 Isaac Zamora rampage that left six dead in Skagit County, and the 2012 Café Racer murders in Seattle. Less dramatic, yet equally evil, examples crash on spouses and family members throughout the Pacific Northwest.
Washington can do better. Sign, and let the people decide.
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