In Our View: Solution Seeks Problem

A legal challenge to a new Washington law that expanded background checks for gun sales was a solution in search of a problem.

That, essentially, is what Judge Benjamin Settle of the U.S. District Court in Tacoma ruled last week as he threw out the challenge to the law, which was enacted last year following voter approval of Initiative 594. While background checks previously were required for sales by licensed gun dealers, the initiative expanded such checks to private sales, online sales and purchases at gun shows. The goal: To help prevent convicted felons or those with documented mental illness from buying guns. The reaction: 59 percent of statewide voters approved I-594, and 58 percent of Clark County voters agreed.

That invited a challenge led by the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation, which argued that the provisions in the law “are so vague that a person of ordinary intelligence cannot understand their scope.” The plaintiffs questioned whether background checks would be required for a FedEx worker who transported a gun sold in Washington, whether an unmarried couple living together would be allowed to share a gun and whether an airline worker would need a background check before handling luggage that contained a firearm. Judge Settle ruled that the plaintiffs had no standing to challenge the law because they are not being prosecuted for violating it, nor could they demonstrate any imminent possibility of prosecution.

Alan Gottlieb, a co-founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, said: “It’s mind-boggling that a citizen must put their civil rights — not to mention their clean criminal record — at risk for the court to rule on the constitutionality of the law. You should be able to challenge an attack on your constitutional rights without having to go to jail first. . . . The state has gotten away with this because they haven’t prosecuted anybody. Why do we have a law on the books that nobody is prosecuting?”

Which points out something that proponents of the law have asserted all along. As King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg said when I-594 went into effect: “Responsible gun owners aren’t going to see a difference. What it might do is raise the risk for people who are willing to sell guns, no questions asked.” That not only is the intent of the law, it is the language of the law, and law enforcement officials have noted that prosecutions are most likely when a gun is used in another crime and can be traced to a previous owner who illegally transferred the weapon.

During the election debate over I-594 and ever since the initiative was passed, opponents have done their best to scuttle it. They held a rally in front of the state Capitol in which they handed guns back and forth — defiantly hoping to be arrested; nobody was. Now they have put themselves in the curious position of arguing that a law they abhor should be more stringently enforced — even though the law poses no threat to law-abiding gun owners. Even those with ordinary intelligence can see the canard in their reasoning.

I-594 is not a panacea, but it is a perfectly reasonable attempt to make it more difficult for felons to obtain guns while not infringing upon the rights of law-abiding citizens. It simply closed a loophole that allowed felons to purchase weapons at gun shows, even if they could not do so at a gun store. Opponents thus far have presented nothing other than hypotheticals to discredit the law, and in the process, they have come up with a solution where there is no problem.