How State Supreme Court Election Could Change Everything in Anti-Gun Washington

Washington state was a pretty pro-gun place before all the locusts from California moved there. Silicon Valley pulled up stakes, changed its address to the Evergreen State, and immediately went to work creating the same political environment they left to the south. Part of that has been gun control laws, and so the previously pro-gun Washington is now decidedly anti-gun, and the election makeup of the state Supreme Court has just solidified that.

Not a great situation, especially for my friends who live in the state and are stuck with this crap.

But there's hope on the horizon with a number of judges who would change the leftist lean of the court should they get elected.

The nail-biting in Washington state has begun, with the eyes of gun owners focused on the effort to flip the State Supreme Court from an entirely liberal makeup to one with at least five by-the-book independent justices who are being supported by conservatives, many independents, and gun rights activists.

Next Tuesday’s election will determine whether legal challenges to an insidious permit-to-purchase law, passed entirely by Democrats and opposed by Republicans—House Bill 1163—will succeed or fail.

Ammoland News broke the story back on Sept. 11 that this purchase permit will cost at least $126, and that does not include fees for the mandatory training requirement in order to qualify for the permit, which could cost several hundred dollars more.

The law will undoubtedly be challenged in state and federal court under provisions of Article I, Section 24 of the state constitution, and under the Second Amendment, which was incorporated to the states by the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in McDonald v. City of Chicago. There is no small irony in the fact that the McDonald case was brought by the Second Amendment Foundation, which is based in Bellevue, Wash.

Article I, Section 24 of the state constitution says, “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.”

Nowhere does it state, or even suggest, that this right is dependent upon completion of a safety course or the acquisition of a permit-to-purchase. Instead, this right, as spelled out by a state constitution adopted on Nov. 1, 1889, “shall not be impaired.” Critics of the new law, which takes effect May 1, 2027, say prior restraint mandates such as purchase permits and expensive training requirements are impairments.

They say that because they are.

As it stands, challenging the law in state court is just an expensive formality and little else. There's no chance in the world that the liberal judges currently on the bench will find this law, as well as many others yet to come, as anything but constitutional.

That's a problem, because it's about politics and not the law.

I don't know any of the election opponents, but let's be real and assume that they're not vehemently anti-gun, but they're not vehemently pro-gun, either. Even that is better than the status quo because, if nothing else, it means there's a fighting chance on pro-gun cases. As it stands now, there isn't. State court is where you go to put up the good fight and throw money down the toilet, knowing good and well that you're never going to win.

That is, at best, disheartening.

The permit-to-purchase law is just the first one that will likely get a hearing, but we know the direction of the state legislature over the last handful of years. This will be important for more than just this law. I think we all know it.

If you live in Washington state, make it a point to go out and vote if you haven't done so early. Your state needs you, and do what you can to find ways that you can get everyone else in your life fired up to make the same choice.

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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