By Joseph O’Sullivan
The Seattle Times
OLYMPIA — The Second Amendment Foundation and National Rifle Association have filed a lawsuit seeking to block Initiative 1639, arguing that the gun-regulations measure violates both the Washington state and U.S. constitutions.
Filed Thursday in U.S. District Court against the state of Washington and Attorney General Bob Ferguson, the lawsuit also includes plaintiffs who are gun dealers and young adults.
Nearly 60 percent of voters approved the sweeping package of gun regulations. The most high-profile part of the measure raises the legal purchase age for a semi-automatic rifle to 21, from 18.
Gun-rights advocates have vigorously protested the initiative as unconstitutional. Earlier this year, they sought to keep it off the ballot and promised a legal challenge if it succeeded with voters.
Alan Gottlieb, executive vice president and founder of the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation, promised that more legal challenges against the initiative are in the works.
“We made it known that we were going to file this lawsuit in advance,” Gottlieb said. “And this is just phase one of our legal attack.”
Among other contentions, Thursday’s 41-page complaint, alleges that I-1639 violates the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. The plaintiffs include a handful of adults who are under the age of 21, including a member of the U.S. Army Reserve and a competitive sport shooter.
Those plaintiffs argue that, “by preventing their purchase of certain rifles, [the initiative] impermissibly burdens their exercise of rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
The lawsuit does not directly challenge the parts of the law pertaining to enhanced background checks or training requirements. However, the groups asked the court to block the entire law pending a determination of whether those provisions can be separated from the parts they are seeking to block: those related to sales to those under 21 and to out-of-state residents.
Tallman Trask, spokesman for the Alliance for Gun Responsibility, the organization that sponsored the initiative, dismissed the latest lawsuit as legal “Hail Mary” by gun-rights advocates.
“We always expected the NRA or the gun lobby in general, to sue and try to stop I-1639,” he said, because they “can’t stop it at the ballot box.”
In addition to raising the purchase-age for semi-automatic rifles, the new law requires those wanting such a firearm to pass an enhanced background check, show proof of having taken a firearms-training course and wait 10 business days before they actually get the gun.
The initiative also includes a “safe storage” provision that, in some circumstances, makes firearm owners criminally liable if someone not allowed to access a gun — such as a child or a felon — gets a hold of it and displays it publicly, causes it to discharge or uses it in a crime.
I-1639 also directs the state to develop a system to check at least every year to make sure owners of firearms are still legally eligible to have them.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
