U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)-Something unusual, perhaps even remarkable, is happening in Washington State as fall classes begin at Washington State University and authorities there have announced that because of last year’s passage of gun control Initiative 1639—which established safe storage requirements for firearms—and campus police have stopped a long-existing program of providing safe storage for students’ firearms: the media admits there is an unintended consequence.
According to MyNorthwest.com, “The way the law is written, WSU police say they’d have to conduct a background check every time a student checked out their gun, which would take several days. They’d also have to do a ‘mental health check’ and send letters to mental health facilities to make sure the student is allowed to have a firearm.”
Not surprisingly, in explaining this problem, either the media or the campus police are getting the situation at least partly confused with the requirements of an earlier anti-gun-rights measure, Initiative 549, approved by voters in 2014. That one requires so-called “universal background checks” for every transfer of a firearm.
And there is yet another angle to this story nobody seems willing to touch. Initiative 1639 prohibits young adults in the 18-20 age group from purchasing so-called “semi-automatic assault rifles,” the definition of which ensnares every semi-auto rifle ever manufactured, including popular small game guns as the Ruger 10/22, Savage A22, Marlin Model 60 and Remington Nylon 66. So, what happens to the students who already own such firearms?
When the WSU campus police announced earlier this month they were discontinuing the gun storage program, suddenly the “unintended consequences” of I-1639 came as a shock to a news media that had largely supported the measure.
The Tacoma News Tribune recently editorialized, “For more than three decades students could voluntarily check their guns with WSU police, locked up but accessible for off-campus use. This is the Palouse, after all, and a weekend hunting trip or target practice outing is well within the rights of young adults who know how to handle a shotgun or range pistol…
“The policy change is not only detrimental to student gun owners,” the newspaper continued, “it’s also likely to inflame bad feelings that already burn hot east of the Cascades. While I-1639 passed on the strength of urban Puget Sound voters, it failed in all but two counties in Eastern Washington.”
Ironically, one of those counties was Whitman, where WSU is located in the City of Pullman. No doubt a fair number of WSU employees and educators voted for the measure. Now it is biting their students on the collective backside.
The editorial concludes, “But at WSU, safe storage has long helped promote responsible gun ownership among rural students who don’t take the Second Amendment lightly… Yes, a solid majority of Washington voters supported a good gun-reform package last year. But nobody ever said it was perfect.” The term for such a statement is: “lame.”
That’s especially so of the News Tribune editorial board, which last October urged voters to pass the measure. Now the newspaper is acknowledging with a cringe that there can be a problem with gun control, although the New Tribune notes that at the University of Washington, in Seattle—where the I-1639 “Yes” vote was overwhelming—still stores guns for students, but admits there can be a wait of up to three days to retrieve the firearm. That doesn’t work well if a student suddenly has a chance to go hunting on a weekend, and the invitation-only comes Friday morning.
KXLY News reported that Assistant WSU Campus Police Chief Steve Hansen said it is “not feasible” for his department to run a background check every time a student wants to retrieve his/her firearm. Those checks can take three to five days.
But what are the students to do now with the firearms they’re bringing, with classes on the horizon? They can’t legally store guns in campus housing, and the high-minded gun prohibitionists who pushed the initiative would be horrified to see students store guns in their cars. Perhaps one of those Seattle-area billionaires who bankrolled the initiative can put up the funding for a secure storage facility off-campus, accessible only to students whose guns are stored therein, meaning the billionaire anti-gunners wouldn’t get a key.
Hansen suggested that gun-owning students talk to local gun shops or gun clubs about storing their firearms with those entities, claiming that it would not constitute a “transfer of ownership.” But neither does ownership transfer to a police department that is storing guns; it amounts to the same thing. If one is not allowed under I-1639, so is the other.
When both I-594 and I-1639 were on the ballot, Evergreen State gun owners and Second Amendment activists warned about the potential for hurting the wrong people, and now those predictions—dismissed at the time by the gun prohibition lobby and even some in the media as so much paranoia—are coming true.
But the development underscores and perhaps reinforces, the importance of a federal court challenge to I-1639 now being made by the Second Amendment Foundation and National Rifle Association. That legal action is now in the discovery phase and a hearing has not yet been set.
It’s too early to tell whether I-1639 will prevent a crime, but now there is proof positive it is making good people suffer. I-594, the background check measure, has demonstrably failed to prevent a couple of high-profile shootings in 2016 that cost a total of eight lives, and there have been several fatal shootings in Seattle, Tacoma and other Washington cities involving people with guns who should not have had them, including the slaying of a Kittitas County Sheriff’s Deputy earlier this year by a man in this country illegally, having overstayed a visa.
Last October, prior to the vote on I-1639 when Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms noted that the top four statewide law enforcement organizations opposed the measure, he had this to say:
“When boots-on-the-ground lawmen and women oppose a measure that is being promoted as a crime-prevention tool, it is safe to conclude that there is something really wrong with it.”
Law enforcement was right, and so was Gottlieb.
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About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
I agree with everything David is sayting here, except for one thing: these, and othe, consequences are NOT “unintended”. Anyone naif enough to think so simply has not researched creatures like Bloomburg, Hanauer, Allen, Gates, and the other two main proponents of this travesty of law foisted upon the People of Washington State by their money. ANY method, hurdle, obstacle, probelm, fee, hassle, requirement they can put in the way of an individual buying, sellin,g havin,g using, borrowing, feeding, owning, transporting safekkeing, any firearm is a win for them. Their goal is to make arms SO outrageously diffiecult and risky… Read more »
Sometimes it’s really, really hard not to say, “I told you so.”
These kids have no choice but to break the law in order to protect themselves while on campus. It’s as simple as that folks. Their lives are far more important than an insane and misguided liberal agenda. They have my full support.
The tip of the iceberg. Read John Ross’s Unintended consequences for a close look at further down the road. No one has yet had the guts to write about the first amendment becoming target should the second be rendered dead – heaven forbid. As a parallel keep a close eye on the social rewardsaccounting means used by the Chinese. Add to all that the actions of the Chinese gov as the rebellious acts increase. The picture becomes clear that without guns any government will do it’s best to force the citizens to knuckle under and do little more than pay… Read more »
@Zond, I have Unintended Consequences on my library shelf. Riveting! It is so in demand that libraries are afraid to loan it out.
Face Book is already keeping track and assembling a a “social score”, like the Chinese gov. does, on everyone that uses Face Book. And businesses are seeking to keep us from exercising our civil rights, like Citibank not letting firearms transactions go through. Maybe it is time to extend our civil rights to social media and business.
The wailing cry, spewed by all those ‘save us from ourselves’ do-gooders, is “if it saves just one life it would be worth it.” Applying that nonsense to anything else that the restricting, banning, confiscation of would “save just one life,” would have ALL of us rendered naked and eating grubs with our fingers!
Manure-for-brains level of stupidity REALLY cannot be fixed.
As a former (VN era, 1968-1977) Staff Sergeant, stupid can be fixed. The effort required is tremendous and the fatality rate of those being mentally “adjusted” is as high as 50%, so it takes a truly dedicated de-programmer to even start the process.
Problem in most of our states is that the “stupidity” contingent is congregated in their LARGEST cities! Those “voters” then outnumber any intelligent/sane folk all over the rest of the state. That is how the ‘criminal Clinton’ won the popular vote in 2016. Won CA by approximately 3,000 and NY by about 1,000 (LA, SF, NYC). Thankfully, however, winning by ONLY 3,000, not the 4,000 she had with just those two states, she LOST everywhere else in the country! Since so many of the ignorant, ill-educated, congregate in a state’s largest welfare/sanctuary cities, and control most of the state’s elections,… Read more »
We had the same sort of obscenity in Minnesota, where 80 of 87 counties went for President Trump, but the population cesspools and hereditary democrat iron range went for hillary who took the state electoral votes.
They got what they wanted and oh, the (delicious) irony.
Another perfect example of people ‘allowing’ their law makers to INFRINGE on every aspect of their liberties and Freedoms. Give those “save us from ourselves” whacks an inch, and before you know it, they will have made it so complicated, convoluted, and frustrating to exercise your “God Given Right” to self-defense, that you just relent, and become a docile sheep waiting for the slaughter! To each his own; however, my personal credo is: ‘I will obey no man-made law that would deny me my ‘God Given Right’ to self-defense of myself or others, by ANY appropriate means, ANYWHERE!’ That dastardly… Read more »
There’s always the “don’t ask, don’t tell” option…
Good article, Dave. The media really doesn’t care that they supported a completely Draconian firearms law. And the anti-gunners are still partying. I feel bad for these students, probably great kids, who won’t have the same opportunities they did just a year ago. It’s a great injustice.
Thank you for reading and sharing! Keep your eye on this. It’s not over yet!
You do have to wonder where are all the other gun owners in opposing these ‘legislators?’ What is that old saying(?), ‘first they came for the baker, but I wasn’t a baker, so I said nothing…..’ Washingtonians may have the same issues that those ‘sane’ people left in CA have – DemonRATS, collected in a few LARGE cities, running to ruin the state!
Those on the left are so into securing their own, “protection,” they care absolutely nothing about anyone else or the rights of anyone else.
The true agenda for these anti-gun whacks is ‘elimination/confiscation.’ They only care about power and control! They are all but anti-American, and have no restraining thought concerning restricting “liberties!” “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” BF
It isn’t an “unintended consequence” to those that pushed the law. It may have been unintended for the deep pocketed backers, the college and the police.
But it is exactly what the shadows wanted.
Disarm the law abiding citizens because changing the United States into a tyranny, either communist or at least socialist.
Those two are one and the same, they can’t be separated.
@CK, True, but that is not the plot of the book. Through the book’s hero, Henry Bowman, author Ross gives us the truth of how we got where we are and points a way forward.
The support of these initiatives is always base on completely distorted information, and fake statistics. Washington is full of emotional and non-intellectually voters, aka Progressives. Please do not confuse them with the facts.
The students could safely keep their guns where no one (deranged liberal student) could steal them from the dorm room or car, thus making the campus more safe, but now the new (and stupid, and ineffective) law with have the opposite effect. Keeping guns off campus will be the only alternative for students or breaking the school no gun policy. Now, hunting and recreational shooting will simply be more of a “hassle” and will be avoided by many students, which is the real purpose of the legislation.
2A overrides any state law interfering with possession of a firearm, so just disregard the state law. Shift the burden of proof to the local DA. We have to stop defending our God given rights, and go on the offensive. Any so called law enforcement individuals at the state level should be charged with a list of Federal crimes. A federal Magistrate should agree with the complaint and have the US Marshals arrest the one charged. If he doesn’t, then he is breaking his oath to protect the US Constitution and should be dismissed. Use the system against the ANTIES!!!
@Colie, The Magistrate can not be dismissed for what you call breaking his oath. So how will you get the Magistrate or Marshal’s Service to do that?
Don’t forget Jury Nullification. If you get to serve on a jury in such a case, you must vote “Not Guilty” to ensure an acquittal or at least a mistrial.
Since the lawyers prosecuting these “crimes” are funded by the government, they have few fears of being called to account when they manage jury lists to remove Second Amendment supporters from those juries, or they will move the trial into a municipality that is more “friendly” to their agenda. One example is the o.j. simpson trial.
@Hua, I bet that you are right. It would not be difficult to find out a lot about a potential jury member from Facebook. The prosecutors used to have to send someone out to the parking lot to get their vehicle license plate number.
“unintended consequence”? Causing more hardships in exercising the right to arms is the intended consequence of any such law. The media is not disappointed or suddenly learning of this effect. Neither are the people who passed the law.
@laughing Jack mac, the unintended consequence is not limitation of exercising the civil right to arms. I don’t want to spoil it by giving away the plot, but it is a terrific book.
“Unintended Consequences” by John Ross is available as a .pdf and free download.
John Ross Unintended Consequences – freedomsphoenix.com
or
https://blindhypnosis.com/unintended-consequences-pdf-john-ross.html
Hua, Good info on a good read and enlightening read!
The people that wrote those laws intended them to be impossible to comply with, therefore everyone with a gun of any sort is a potential law breaker.
“Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.” ~Lavrentiy Beria, chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus under Joseph Stalin.
That is exactly why accepting ANY compromise that ‘infringes’ on our ‘God Given Right’ to self-defense is insane naïveté! Gun owners get ‘taken,’ and never ‘receive’ anything except another infringement. They know that eliminating that dastardly 2nd Amendment is not likely, at least in any lifetime I’m familiar with, and as seen by those 20,000 gun laws already in effect, they continue to bite by incremental bite INFRINGE on our liberties/freedoms! State laws that make it nearly impossible to be legally armed, coupled together with exorbitant FEES/taxes, are designed to discourage or even prevent an individual from exercising that Right.
I’m a student at WSU Pullman. Luckily I live off-campus, but I know someone just put guns in his old car. They really don’t have a choice, the closest gun club does not store firearms and closest gun store is 17 miles away. This is a very safe place, but…let’s see what will happen.
I’ve heard that the best way to get a bad law (and the politicians who passed it) removed is to rigorously enforce it.
60% voted for this.ive heard mr workman discuss this travesty on aar several times!
But 60% passed this and now they’re taking aim at the other states who pass law by mob rule.
EJ… Make that “Dave” … and thanks for reading!
Sometimes I wonder if the consequences are intended or unintended. One thing we know for sure, is that there are always consequences.
BTW Dave, I went to school with a Dave Workman at N.C.H.S. Would that be you?