By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
A bill prefiled in the Washington State Senate that appeared to erase privacy for participants in a three-year-old bump stock “buyback” program has been “retracted” and the code advisor in Olympia is drafting a new version, TGM has learned.
Senate Bill 5127 had included a paragraph protecting the privacy of gun owners who took advantage of the buyback program in 2019, through which lines were drawn, indicating that restriction was being removed. When TGM reported the problem, it immediately got the attention of grassroots gun rights activists.
But according to separate email messages from Erin Hut (she/her), a communications specialist with the Senate Democratic Caucus, “The line at the end of the bill was a technical edit made by the (code reviser) because the program in question ended in 2020. The information that was being protected now doesn’t exist.”
Thursday afternoon, Hut sent a follow-up message stating, “The original bill is being retracted and the code advisor is drafting up a new version without that stricken section.”
Senate Bill 5127 is sponsored by Democrat Senators Claire Wilson, assistant majority Whip representing the 30th District in south King County, and Liz Lovelett, from the 40th District, encompassing the San Juan Islands in Northwest Washington near the Canadian border.
TGM did reach out to both senators’ offices for an explanation prior to publication of the original story Wednesday, but neither office responded.
The original four-page bill provided protections for a school district’s ability “to redact personal information related to a student in any record maintained by the school district.” The subject had nothing to do with firearms or the long-dead bump stock project for which the legislature had budgeted $150,000 to compensate owners of the devices, which had been banned in reaction to the Las Vegas concert shooting.
The questionable section read: “Names, addresses, or other personal information of individuals who participated in the bump-fire stock buy-back program under RCW 43.43.920,” meaning this privacy protection is removed. It was much ado about nothing, as Hut said the information protected by that paragraph no longer existed.
Evergreen State gun owners are wary as the 2023 Legislature is set to convene next week. Already on their minds is the agenda announced by Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson which seeks to ban so-called “assault weapons.” Inslee also wants legislation requiring would-be gun buyers to first obtain a permit-to-purchase before they can actually buy a gun.
Second Amendment activists are preparing for a fight, as they consider such a permit requirement to be unconstitutional under the parameters of the June 2022 Bruen ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which admonished lower courts for treating the Second Amendment differently from other rights protected by the Constitution.
No citizen should be required to obtain a permit in order to exercise a constitutionally-enumerated fundamental right, activists say. The right to bear arms is protected by both the federal and Washington State constitutions.
A state ban on semiautomatic “assault rifles” is already being challenged in federal court in Maryland. Should the Supreme Court ultimately rule that such rifles as the AR-15 and AK-47 are protected by the Second Amendment, it would nullify bans already in place in several states.
Although Democrats hold a decisive majority in the Washington Legislature, gun owners in the state are keeping a watchful eye out for gun-related legislation.
