WA Attorney General Ferguson Announces Sweeping Gun Control Agenda

New gun-control proposals by Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson include more restrictions on ammunition sales and magazine capacity. (Dave Workman photo)

Washington – -(AmmoLand.com)- Flanked by representatives from several Seattle-based gun prohibition lobbying groups along with representatives from the office of Gov. Jay Inslee, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced sweeping gun control proposals Thursday that include magazine capacity limits, a ban on the sale of so-called “assault weapons,” background check requirements for ammunition sales and more.

Ferguson, a Democrat, is famous for having sued the Trump administration nearly 50 times since President Donald Trump took office in 2017.

Also appearing with Ferguson, according to his office, were Democrat state Sens. David Frockt and Patty Kuderer, and state Reps. Strom Peterson and Javier Valdez. They joined representatives from the Alliance for Gun Responsibility, Grandmothers Against Gun Violence and Washington Ceasefire.

Ferguson is portraying his legislative wish list as a strategy to “combat mass shootings in Washington State.” In 2014, the Alliance for Gun Responsibility bankrolled Initiative 594, requiring background checks for all firearms transfers, with a few narrow exceptions. Less than two years later, in 2016, a 19-year-old killer passed a background check when he purchased a semi-auto rifle and subsequently opened fire at a teen party in Mukilteo, killing three former classmates and wounding a fourth. Three months later, another 19-year-old took a semi-auto rimfire rifle from his stepfather without permission and opened fire at the Cascade Mall in Burlington, killing five shoppers. He bypassed a background check by taking the gun from home.

The proposals are already getting criticism, including comments from John McKay at KFLD, NewsTalk 870.

“Not to be cynical,” McKay said in a brief report online, “but given the previous attempts to pile on more gun restrictions, controls and anti-2nd Amendment legislation, we’re fully expecting a new round of handcuffs–all while not really addressing the root issues of such problems.”

Last year, again with backing from the Seattle gun control lobby, voters passed Initiative 1639, which included a definition of a so-called “semiautomatic assault rifle” that applies literally to every self-loading rifle ever manufactured, including .22-caliber rimfire sporting rifles that have been around for a century.

Now, the prediction from Evergreen State gun rights activists appears to be coming true: invent a definition and then ban the guns as defined.

Even Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich told reporters earlier this year the only reason the definition was included in I-1639 was to make it possible for anti-gunners to later push for a complete ban.

Under Ferguson’s proposed ammunition regulations, violent felons who can’t legally buy guns would also be prohibited from buying or possessing ammunition.

It would be illegal for a retailer to sell ammunition to anyone he knew was prohibited from legally buying or owning firearms.

Under the ammunition proposal, background checks for all ammo sales would be required starting “30 days after the U.S. Department of Justice changes its rules and authorizes dealers to use the national instant criminal background check system, known as NICS, to initiate a check for a transfer of ammunition.”

Ammunition dealers would be required to obtain a state firearms license for $125.

In Ferguson’s news release, there were references to mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas. The release noted that nine states restrict sales of so-called “high capacity magazines.” Washington is not one of them.

The attorney general also alluded to data from the anti-gun Violence Policy Center that claimed “high-capacity magazines have been involved in at least 74 mass shootings” since 1980, a period of nearly 40 years. When you call normal capacity gun magazines “high-capacity” that is and expected result.

Washington Rep. Amy Walen
Washington Rep. Amy Walen

The ammunition legislation is reportedly sponsored by Rep. Amy Walen, a Kirkland Democrat.

“Ammunition safety is a critical component of firearm safety that we can’t forget about,” Walen said in the Ferguson news release. “We can’t keep our communities safe if dangerous individuals who are prohibited from owning guns can still keep ammunition. It’s past time for Washington to catch up with states like Idaho, Louisiana, and Texas and prevent dangerous individuals from purchasing ammunition.”

Evergreen State gun owners have been in the crosshairs of the gun prohibition lobby for several years. Backed by a handful of wealthy supporters, gun control lobbyists have been successful with three initiative measures over the past five years, outspending grassroots rights activists sometimes 20-to-1, and that includes reported expenditures by the National Rifle Association and local Second Amendment groups. Many in the grassroots gun rights community are currently campaigning to repeal I-1639 with a signature-gathering effort on their own measure, Initiative 1094, an initiative to the legislature. They need to gather 300,000 signatures by Christmas in order to validate their initiative.

The NRA and Second Amendment Foundation are challenging provisions of I-1639 in federal court in Tacoma. That case is currently in the discovery phase.


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.

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JFCrosby

Amy Walen, another liberal feminist. These women are disgusting, but not as disgusting as the weasel men, men who never served their country, but are looking for ways to advance up the political ladder.

Dumdfounded

and let homeless drugs addicts run ragged in streets of your cities. Great idea!

Wild Bill

@Founded, Yeah, while the legislators steal your money and diminish your Rights!

Justista

“We can’t keep our communities safe if dangerous individuals who are prohibited from owning guns can still keep ammunition.”

Huh? My God these people are stupid!

olddog

The WA political scene needs to be cleansed of dummycrates. Where are the Constitutional conservatives and Patriots! Do they need help?

Superman

They are overwhelmed by the amount of Dumbocrats who live in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties. ‘I can see all of the votes I need from the top of the Space Needle’ – Former U.S. Senator Henry ‘Scoop’ Jackson.

Wild Bill

@"MCCLOUD!", sad, but true.

Wild Bill

If one spills some whisky on themselves and runs them over with their car, then one is just a motorist and it is just a tragic accident.

tetejaun

Far past time for these anti-America, anti-Constitution communists to pay for their crimes.

Everyone wants to be a Patriot, until its time to do patriot things……..

Wild Bill

@ttj, Show us the way.

SgtJUSMC

Washington State Constitution is very clear!

Article I, SECTION 24 RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS. Washington State Constitution:

“The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state, shall not be impaired, but nothing in this section shall be construed as authorizing individuals or corporations to organize, maintain or employ an armed body of men.”

https://leg.wa.gov/LawsAndAgencyRules/Pages/constitution.aspx

None

Washington liberials haven’t gotten the message they will be first to go down when the civil war kicks off

james

The teen who stole the rimfire rifle and used it in a crime is no different then a teen who steals a car and used it to run people over. No ‘background’ check can stop that.

Rock

Every anti gun bill, legislation, law moves the match ever so closer to a fuse the Dems/libs do NOT want to light, there will be no putting it out once lit.

Doszap

I think they re trying to GET US TO START the SHTF so it will give them the HIGH GROUND and the excuse to get the FEDS involved.
WE WONT.If they Do.
Then GAME ON.

Rwin556

Well at least that provides us the element of surprise.

GAMtns

Yes. Lincoln carefully and secretly constructed the scenario while Congress was out of session by invading Ft. Pickens in Florida and Ft. Sumter which the press didn’t know about and later were censored or shut down, in order to get the Confederates to fire the “first shot.” The government must fire the first shot. This is why nullification works. Just ignore the unconstitutional law like the counties in VA did.

Superman

So now you invent fantasy history?

Phil in TX

Those “laws” in Virginia aren’t even laws yet. The incoming elected officials are threatening to pass them as soon as they take office. THEN they should be ignored until such time that they can be struck down in court or repealed.
Phil in TX

Quatermain

“It’s past time for Washington to catch up with states like Idaho, Louisiana, and Texas and prevent dangerous individuals from purchasing ammunition.” What is this woman blathering about??? There is no such thing!!

Finnky

Hey – we have ammo purchase restrictions in Texas. If I’m not mistaken one has to be 18 to purchase rifle ammo and 21 to purchase handgun ammo (federal law) – and our special rule… you need funds to purchase ammo. We do actually have a “loophole” on that last one – if ‘seller’ is giving it away or extends credit.

Tionico

WHAT is this Kirkland idiot blithering about? Texas, Idaho, Louisiana have no particular restrictions on ammunition purchases…. nothing beyond the federal limits. Without a firearm to FIRE that ammunition, it is no more dangeorus than a pile of drainrock lying in the drieway. And standard capacity magazines? Fergie claims they’ve been used in 74 incidents in the past however many years. In HOW MANY of those incidents did the size of the mag make any difference? Iin one, Sutherland Springs church murders, the perp was disabled from possession of firearms, but that info had not been sent to FBI/NICS< so… Read more »

Finnky

@Tionico – Saw the same thing. No checks to buy ammo in Texas, walk in and pay just as it should be. BTW – You are mistaken about Stephen Willeford, he loaded one magazine before leaving his house and was almost out when the shooting stopped. Maybe he only had one round left at the end, which could be where you got the idea of having only used one round. Mr. Willeford has stated that he will no longer not have loaded magazines available – his response was slowed dramatically by having to find separate items and load the mag.… Read more »

Phil in TX

Exactly! I have NEVER had any kind of restriction to buy ammo here in TX and what the hell does she think someone would do with it without a firearm with which to use it? Throw it at their target? Or did I miss the memo on the new, high powered, supersonic slinghot?
Phil in TX

Billbo

Hey Whalen: When did the Constitution require you to “keep us safe?” Isn’t that the same excuse China is using in Hong Kong?

Tionico

Fergie forgets that we hired him to ENFORCE the laws, not MAKE them. He should also take a hard look at what is happening in Virginia. Outside of King, Snohomish, and perhapsPierce Counties, he does not have the support of the sheriffs. I remember after 594 was bought by Bloomie and his minions all but two of Washington’s sheriffs declared they woild not enforce that rotten law. In all the years since it has only been used ONCE as a primary charge, and once more as a secondary or ancilliary charge. The one primary was a case where LE knew… Read more »

gregs

exactly right, he is attorney general. not a legislator. leftists are not confined by such mundane things as job descriptions. how many of that litigation against the Trump Administration came out in his favor? and how much of the taxpayer’s money did he waste? he doesn’t care.

Oldman

Well, we who are living here in WA state knew it was coming. That’s what happens when gun owners don’t get out and vote, thinking it will never happen to them. Just hoping Chief Culp can get elected to governor next year, and Ferguson’s security guards turn in their high capacity mags.

Superman

Culp does not have a prayer. Wishful thinking on your part. You need to face reality.

Wild Bill

@"MCCLOUD!", Predicting the future, now?

WilliamR

How many of these “mass shootings” happened in GUN FREE ZONES. Eliminating gun free zones would save more lives and not make legal citizens criminals.

Whodaty

I don’t understand how it can be constitutional for a referendum vote by the general population (mob) can be used as a basis for denying certain citizens of constitutional rights. If the mob can vote to negate the 2nd amendment, how is that different from say, a vote of the people to make the taking communion with wine and wafer (Body and Blood of Christ) because a few people have choked on the wafers or the wine? How can the general population be so appalled by “gun violence” while blithely ignoring the daily carnage wrought by cell phone distracted drivers?… Read more »

Bluemax

“Dictator” Just another politician invoking his will on the people without consent. A Tyrannical Government, working for itself not the people. When will the liberals wake up and realize. This Government falsely gives, but demands to take Rights away! These infringements are for control of the peasants, plain and simple. Pray we can keep what’s left of our God given freedoms and Liberties.

Hankus

Ferguson is a flaming asshole.

PNWanon

The streets of Washington will turn red with the blood of socialists, communists and liberals.

hangemhigh

Go get ’em, tiger!

Mark 2nd

Yes! There are no “democrats”, only fascist/communists to a greater or lessor degree. The last true “democrat” was John F. Kennedy and he would be considered a moderate Republican nowadays. Greed, insanity and an overwhelming lust for power is what controls the party of Jackasses and jackboots. It’s long past time to send them to HELL.

RoyD

If by “true democrat” you meant someone whose whoring around was more important than keeping the nations secrets such that his father had him sent to the Pacific Theatre, then you would be correct. It you meant someone who had no problem whoring around on his wife even after he became President, then again you are correct. Of course good old Ike had his side piece too; just a difference of degree.

CommonSense4America

Washington State citizens,,,watch and learn about Virginia’s dealings with unconstitutional gun laws.

StLPro2A

A politician with a law never stops a bad guy with a gun. He only controls the good guys, which is his true agenda.
The bad guy with a gun…..
or the mentally deficient guy with a gun……
or the terribly distraught family member of a gun shooting victim…….
or the Feelz-Gooder Social Do-Gooder…..are the politician’s Useful Idiot Tools to achieve his control and power agenda.

loveaduck

Don’t forget the Short Penis Envy League. They’re for these rules, too.

Hankus

Correct, Ferguson wants to be governor, so he is trying to prove that his is smaller than Inslee’s.