http://www.examiner.com/article/saturday-speakers-to-include-bundy-vanderboegh-jan-15-event-announcedSaturday speakers to include Bundy, Vanderboegh; Jan. 15 event announcedSaturday’s “I will not comply” gathering in Olympia will include some nationally-known government critics, while a more legislative-oriented Jan. 15 event, co-sponsored by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and the Second Amendment Foundation, who were joined today by Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, could leave a more immediate impression on state lawmakers, considering a Monday morning e-mail exchange between Examiner and the Department of Licensing (DOL).
The e-mails were about the expansion of the state pistol registry under Initiative 594. They tend to confirm what many gun owners have feared about record-keeping tenets in the measure. This could create lots of traction for the recently-formed Washington Firearms Leadership Advocacy Group (WAFLAG), an umbrella group that includes the Pink Pistols, Protect Our Gun Rights Washington (POGR) and Gun Rights Coalition (GRC).
Guest speakers announced for this Saturday’s event include Ammon Bundy, son of the Nevada rancher who fought federal officials earlier this year over use of public land, and Mike Vanderboegh, the citizen journalist who helped uncover the Fast and Furious scandal nearly four years ago. Weather may determine the size of the crowd, as will a conflict with the Washington Arms Collectors gun show in Puyallup.
While this Saturday’s event will give Second Amendment activists an opportunity to vent over passage of I-594, the Jan. 15 rally – when the Legislature will be in town – will allow citizens a chance to personally lobby lawmakers. That effort is being organized by POGR and the GRC, with support from the Bellevue-based CCRKBA, SAF and JPFO.
Next month's event is already being described as “the first 2015 Legislative Rally against I-594 and other bad gun laws," suggesting there may be more. Nothing fires up gun owners like bum rap gun laws, and many see I-594 – the 18-page gun control measure passed last month as a launch pad for even more proposals – as a deliberately vague effort to regulate gun ownership as a privilege rather than a constitutionally-protected fundamental civil right, while penalizing law-abiding citizens for crimes they didn't commit.
On Saturday, according to event organizers, there will be exchanges of firearms in alleged defiance of I-594. Expect a lot of defiance-oriented remarks with folks like Bundy and Vanderboegh at the microphone. Also on the program are Sheriff Richard Mack, the former Arizona lawman who challenged the Brady Law, and State Rep. Elizabeth Scott (R-39th District).
Rep. Scott just might be interested in how the DOL is handling its new responsibilities under I-594 as they pertain to keeping a record of inherited pistols. Under the measure, heirs will have 60 days to either sell the handgun (“lawfully transfer”) or decide to keep it. If the handgun is kept, the heirs must advise DOL.
According to DOL’s Brad Benfield, the agency’s “temporary procedure will be to collect information similar to the information collected on the pistol transfer application forms including the name and address of the new owner and identifying information about the pistol. This information will then be kept on file.”
That is handgun registration. Throughout the campaign, I-594 advocates insisted their measure would not create a new gun registration scheme. While that was technically correct, it was also disingenuous because they knew it would expand the existing state pistol registry. Benfield acknowledged via e-mail that, “The new law does create new requirements related to the inheritance or sale of a pistol when the owner dies.”
It’s not Benfield’s fault, nor the agency’s. This expansion falls on the shoulders of I-594 architects, and those who voted for the measure. Benfield promised that the agency is working out the details on a permanent procedure for handling the record requirements, and should have “more information to share about this early next year.”
This “we have to pass it to find out what’s in it” strategy worked in Washington, but the proverbial cat is out of the bag, so rights advocates in other states now know what the gun prohibition lobby is up to with similar efforts in Nevada and elsewhere. All this does in the long run is fuel resentment among gun owners and government critics, while it is doubtful that a single crime will be prevented.
As this column reported earlier, there is more effort to alleviate concerns within the hunting community that I-594 will create problems for the Hunter Education program. If there were not problems, the Department of Fish and Wildlife would not have had to consult legal counsel in the Attorney General’s office, nor would Hunter Ed program manager David Whipple have to send out two e-mail advisories to volunteer instructors to clarify the agency’s position.
Saturday’s rally may provide some sparks, but that might also happen in Puyallup, where the Washington Arms Collectors hosts its first post-enactment monthly gun show at the fairgrounds, now that I-594 has taken effect. Examiner will be reporting from there, where gun owners will be under a roof and out of the weather, getting a firsthand look at how this so-called “universal background check” is supposed to work.
While those folks may skip Saturday’s Olympia event, they may just be circling Jan. 15 on their calendars to head for the Capitol, where they will have a heart-to-heart with their district senators and representatives. That event is on a weekday, and all the lawmakers will be in town. That rally will be on the Capitol steps, right outside of Gov. Jay Inslee’s office.
Inslee supported I-594. January will give him an opportunity to hear from some of his constituents who didn’t.
