Washington state officials are being sued to stop them from enforcing a new gun law adopted by voters in November after donations of tens of millions of dollars from some of the wealthiest men in the world, including former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Microsoft's Bill Gates.
The lawsuit over Initiative 594, which imposes 18 pages of new gun restrictions on Washington residents, was filed Tuesday by Seattle attorneys Steven Fogg and David Edwards, and Bellevue attorney Miko Tempski on behalf of the Second Amendment Foundation, Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb, the Gottlieb Family Trust and others.
"We’re taking action against a poorly written and unconstitutionally vague measure that criminalizes activities that are perfectly legal anywhere else in the country, thus striking at the very heart of a constitutionally protected, fundamental civil right," Gottlieb said in announcing the action that names Attorney General Bob Ferguson and State Patrol Chief John Batiste as defendants.
The plaintiffs allege the law is so vague "that a person of ordinary intelligence cannot understand their scope."
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"We took this action due to the confusing and arbitrary language and nature of I-594," Gottlieb explained. "Three of our plaintiffs, including my son, are residents of other states and cannot legally borrow handguns for personal protection while traveling in Washington. Under I-594, all transfers must be done through federally licensed firearms dealers, but under federal law, dealers cannot legally transfer handguns to residents of other states. I-594 also essentially prohibits our non-resident plaintiffs from storing their own firearms here.
"This measure effectively infringes upon, if not outright prohibits, the exercise of their constitutionally protected right to bear arms under the Second Amendment," he said.
Gottlieb pointed to a recent directive from the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to its volunteer hunter education instructors regarding firearms transfers." In those classes, it now apparently is illegal for a student to hand a weapon to another student. The new law requires an instructor, acting as a law enforcement officer, to take a weapon from one student and hand it to another, a classic "straw-man" transaction.
WND reported their work on the Washington state measure earned a number of America's top billionaires spots on the Top Ten Anti-Gunners for 2014, as chosen by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
The measure addresses "background checks" for gun transfers but goes far beyond anything anywhere else in the country.
Critics said if a teen would grab his shotgun, purchased under his father's name, and go out hunting without his father, he would be breaking the law, unless his father had also paid for a background check on his own son.
The lawsuit said the law is filled with unanswerable questions.
What, for example, is proper when a gun is kept in a gun safe where multiple family members have access?
Other questions:
- What about company guns kept in a company safe where multiple people have access?
- What about shipping weapons, through a common carrier like FedEx?
- What about when firearms are kept in a safe deposit box.
- How about background checks when a person delivers a firearm to an airline for safe transport to a destination?
- Can people fire each others' weapons at a firing range?
- What about if an officer inspects a weapon during, for example, a traffic stop? Can the weapon be returned to the owner?
"Law enforcement officers, including the defendants, have no means to determine the answer to these questions," the complaint states.
The law simply infringes people's right to access weapons, which infringes their Second Amendment rights, it states.
"By maintaining and enforcing a set of laws infringing on the plaintiff's access to firearms, defendants are creating and following customs, policies, and practices that violate the Second Amendment, both facially and as applied against the individual plaintiffs in this action, thereby injuring plaintiffs."
The action seeks an order permanently preventing enforcement of the adopted initiative's provisions that violate the Second Amendment.
CCRKBA said former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was No. 1 on the Anti-Gunners list for spending $50 million to create Everytown for Gun Safety, the anti-gun lobbying organization. He helped finance the Initiative 594 gun-control campaign in Washington state, and he is supporting a similar effort in Nevada.
Others on the list include Paul Allen – the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft and principle owner of the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trailblazers – who spent a half-million dollars on the I-594 campaign in Washington state.
Third was Steve Ballmer, another former Microsoft executive and the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, who added more than $1 million to the I-594 effort.
Next was Hillary Clinton, who supported the unratified United Nations Arms Trade Treaty and has complained that gun owners "terrorize" people by defending the Second Amendment.
No. 5 was Andrew Cuomo, the New York governor who lobbied for the far-reaching "Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act," which, CCRKBA said, "is responsible for job losses in addition to penalizing every gun owner in the state."
Bill Gates was No. 7 for donating more than $1 million to the I-594 gun control effort.
WND reported in November when the gun-control faction won in Washington state.
While 17 states now have background check laws, none go as far as Washington's new law. It represents the first time any state has required background checks on all private gun transfers, no matter how temporary the transfer.