A pending bill would require residents to take safety classes and obtain a permit before buying a gun.
Anti-gun Democrats in Washington state are pushing forward with a bill that would require residents to complete firearm-safety training and to get a permit before they can buy a gun.
But Second-Amendment advocates say the proposal is discriminatory, unconstitutional, and ripe for legal challenges if it’s passed and Democratic Governor Bob Ferguson signs it.
“What they’re trying to do really is discourage people from purchasing firearms,” said Dave Workman, spokesman for the Washington-based Second Amendment Foundation. “It treats the right to bear arms under the state constitution as a regulated privilege.”
The bill — E2SHB 1163 — would impose a variety of new regulations on gun buyers and sellers. To be eligible to purchase a gun, a prospective buyer would have to apply for a permit. To get the permit, the buyer would have to present a certificate of completion of a state-certified firearms safety program in the last five years, along with a complete set of fingerprints taken by a local law enforcement agency.
In addition to paying for firearm training, the buyer could also be charged fees for their permit application as well as for taking and transmitting fingerprints, according to the bill.
Washington’s firearms background check program administrators would have up to 30 days to issue or deny a permit application, and they would have up to 60 days in cases where the applicant doesn’t have a Washington driver’s license or hasn’t resided in the state for 90 days, according to the bill.
Washington’s House Democrats passed the bill along party lines last week after more than three hours of debate that stretched into Saturday morning. It is now in the state Senate.
Workman noted that Washington’s state constitution has strong language establishing that the “right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state, shall not be impaired.” He contends that the bill as it stands now would be a violation of both the state constitution and the Second Amendment.
The prospective fee regimen “is particularly egregious and discriminatory against people on limited income,” Workman told National Review.
Proponents of the bill say it will impose sensible restrictions that will save lives by keeping guns out of the hands of irresponsible people. They contend that permits and licenses are required for a variety of activities, including driving and fishing.
But opponents note that there is a difference between a privilege and a right — whereas driving and fishing are privileges, people have a constitutional right to own a firearm.
“Our perspective is there is no constitutional method of requiring permits to exercise a constitutional right — hard stop,” Bill Sack, the Second Amendment Foundation’s director of legal operations told National Review.
Twelve states already have what are called “permit to purchase” requirements for guns, while three more — Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York — require licenses to own guns, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which struck down New York’s restrictions on issuing concealed-carry licenses, some states are testing the legal limits of gun permitting, Sack said.
Gun permits, he argues, are “just simply not supported by the history and tradition of gun regulation at the time of the founding” and “that is the test.”
“There was no such thing as a permit to purchase a gun in 1791, there was no such thing as a permit to possess a gun in 1791,” Sack said. “They are completely repugnant to the idea that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
Sack also is skeptical that Washington’s proposed permitting regimen would save lives.
“This isn’t going to weed out a single person that would not otherwise be prohibited from buying a gun, because those people would be submitted to literally the same background check that talks to the FBI database, the mental-health database,” he said. “It’s the same exact background check done again to create another layer of burden, another layer of cost, another layer of delay, for people that want to go buy a gun.”
He also doesn’t suspect that the proposed training requirements would have any real impact on the type of people who commit gun crimes. “I doubt,” he said, “that the legislature’s position is that the problem that we have with gun crime is that the criminals that are committing the crime don’t have sufficient training.”
The bills proponents say it could help prevent suicides by delaying gun purchases.
State Representative Strom Peterson, a Democrat, said during last week’s debate that the bill “might give some pause when you’re able to purchase a firearm. Maybe take just a little bit of time. If you’re in a mental health crisis with suicidal ideations to just take a little bit of time before you are able to purchase a firearm.”
Workman said he expects multiple legal challenges if the bill is passes.
“I’m sure the lawmakers on the Democrat side of the aisle realize that this law is going to be challenged vigorously in court,” he said. “Now, they may think because we’re in the Ninth Circuit, which is a very liberal circuit, they’re going to get away with this.”
Washington Democrats have passed several laws in recent years aimed at curtailing gun rights. In 2023, they passed a ban on so-called “assault weapons.”
Last year, they put new restrictions on gun sellers, including prohibiting them from employing people under 21 and mandating a variety of increased security measures. They also added libraries, transit facilities, zoos, and aquariums to the growing list of locations where gun owners cannot openly carry weapons.