♪♪
-End gun violence!
-With demands to improve gun safety on the rise...
-Too many guns of the wrong kind are in the wrong hands.
-...state lawmakers are poised to take action this year.
-Tragedies are happening across the country
it seems every week.
-A ban on so-called assault weapons is gaining momentum.
Plus, gun sellers may face more lawsuits,
and gun buyers may be required to take safety classes.
-Look at the difference. -But critics say
gun-control advocates are missing the mark.
-We don't own rifles to assault people with.
-Emotion should not drive our public policy.
-Will stricter gun laws improve public safety
or make it harder for Washingtonians
to protect themselves?
-It has impacts on domestic violence.
It has impacts on suicide rates.
-Both sides weigh in.
-Constitutional rights are not subject to public opinion polls.
Taking aim at our state's gun-control laws,
next on "City Inside Out."
♪♪
Welcome to this edition of "City Inside Out."
I'm your host, Brian Callanan.
Amidst an ongoing crisis of gun violence,
advocates have targeted this legislative session in Olympia
to pass some much stricter laws in our state.
Proposals include a ban
on the sale of so-called assault weapons,
a 10-day waiting period,
and required safety classes for those who buy firearms,
and even a provision to make gun sellers and manufacturers
legally liable for negligent sales.
Opponents say these new proposals
will not improve public safety
and infringe upon a right
enshrined in the U.S. and Washington state
Constitutions to bear arms.
But new polling numbers show
lawmakers may be feeling some pressure to act,
and Washington's gun laws are directly in their sights.
♪♪
-The Parkland, Florida, school shooting
on Valentine's Day 2018,
where 17 students and staff were killed
changed Robert Schentrup and his family forever.
-Only one of my sisters made it back home alive.
My sister Carmen Schentrup, who was 16 at the time,
was murdered along with 16 of her fellow peers,
teachers, and staff with an assault weapon.
-Schentrup soon turned his grief into action,
advocating with groups like Team Enough
and the Alliance for Gun Responsibility.
-We all want to be safer, right?
We all want to feel secure in our communities.
-Schentrup says the increasing number of school shootings
and other gun-violence incidents since his sister's death
can be linked to an increasing number of gun owners.
Studies show the U.S. now has
roughly 120 guns for every 100 residents --
by far the highest ratio in the world.
-It is this connection between the saturation of firearms
in our communities and the ease of access to them
that is really driving the gun violence that we see.
-Too many guns of the wrong kind are in the wrong hands.
-State leaders have taken up the challenge
from Schentrup and others with an ambitious plan
to overhaul our gun laws in Olympia this year.
The legislation includes a proposed ban on the sale
of so-called assault weapons,
requirements for a 10-day waiting period,
and safety classes for anyone who buys a gun...
plus a bill that would allow people to sue gun sellers
and manufacturers for the negligent sale of a firearm.
-Okay. Do you want to verify there's no ammo in here?
-Jane Milhans says the state's way off target.
-So, this is a semi-automatic rifle.
-She's a certified firearms instructor
who was inspired to teach others after an incident 15 years ago
when she says two men broke into her house.
-I'm all for safety training as a firearm instructor,
but what I'm opposed to is forced training.
And then you're gonna just slowly pull the trigger.
-Milhans has a long wait list for classes like these
and says the state's training requirements
could stop people from exercising
their constitutional right to own a gun for a year or more.
-Take your finger off the trigger.
-And she says with many crimes committed
using illegally obtained guns,
a ban on the sale or transfer of these semi-automatic firearms
won't do a thing to stop gun violence.
-If we get more guns away -- off the street,
the only one who's gonna be giving up their guns
are law-abiding citizens.
-It's an argument you've heard before.
-This bill will limit our rights
and our ability to bear arms.
-These weapons of war have no business in our community.
-But Representative Strom Peterson says
this year in Olympia there's something different.
-This is the first time the bill has ever made it
to the House floor.
-Peterson, a Democrat who began sponsoring
gun-control legislation back in 2016
after an incident in his district of Mukilteo,
says a movement of young people, even young legislators
who have been through school lockdown drills,
has pushed this bill further than ever before.
-Their voices have been louder and louder
over the last few years,
and we finally listened as a legislature.
-And he says, with a recent Crosscut-Elway poll
showing 56% of those surveyed statewide
in support of outlawing the sale and transfer
of most semi-automatic weapons,
his bill and the other gun measures in Olympia
may have the momentum to become law.
-I think these are common-sense regulations.
Many other states have them.
And I think they'll help save lives.
-That's not to say there aren't more fights ahead.
-All those in favor say, "Aye."
-Aye!
-Opposed say, "Nay."
-[Louder] No!
-The amendment is not adopted.
-States have to be very careful
about how they restrict gun rights.
-Republican Representative Jim Walsh
from the 19th District in Aberdeen
points to the U.S. Supreme Court's recent Bruen decision,
which says new gun restrictions
have to be consistent with the country's
"historical tradition of firearm regulation."
Plus, our state constitution specifically notes
a right for people to own guns for the purpose of self-defense.
-Guns are tools, and in the wrong hands,
they can be devastating tools.
And in the right hands, they can be tools of justice.
-Walsh says behind the push to pass these bills
a court challenge is right around the corner.
-I believe these proposals are constitutionally dubious
and are very likely to be overturned.
-But before that potential fight,
there's a fight to the finish of the legislative session,
with the future of gun regulations
hanging in the balance.
[ Gunshot ]
And joining me to discuss a little bit more
about these issues, I have with me
Dylan O'Connor, government affairs director
for the Alliance for Gun Responsibility.
Dylan, good to have you here.
And I also have with us Dave Workman,
editor in chief of TheGunMag.com,
a publication of the Second Amendment Foundation.
We have a ton of ground to cover today.
I want to try to touch on several gun bills
that the state's considering this session.
And let's start with House Bill 1240.
So, this is the proposed ban on the sale or transfer
of what the bill calls assault rifles,
military style semi-automatic rifles.
An important point -- this bill would not
take away anyone's gun.
It specifically focuses on
when a firearm of this type is sold or transferred.
So, this bill has been around for six years, Dylan.
It made it to the floor for the first time here in 2023.
Lawmakers passed it out of the House here in early March.
Talk about why you believe and why lawmakers believe
a bill like this is needed
and also what impact it could have.
-The top six ranked, by fatalities,
in mass shootings in the United States
have all been, you know -- involved assault weapons.
-Mm-hmm. -Research shows that
when assault weapons are used in mass shootings,
up to six times more people are shot,
70% more people are killed.
And if we had, you know, a federal assault-weapons ban
or a state-level assault-weapons ban in place,
there's data supporting that 70% fewer fatalities
and injuries might occur.
I'll also add that the bill's been around for six years,
but this year is a little different
in that we just feel like the psychological place
politically this year is completely different
than it has been in previous years.
I think we've done a lot of work in Washington state
to make sure that folks are --
folks are taking good votes on these bills for sure.
-Dave, what's your response to what Dylan is saying
and what impact do you think
a measure like House Bill 1240 would have on the public?
-Well, first, we're gonna have to find out
whether or not it's constitutional.
-Yeah. -There's three cases
that I know of right now in federal court,
one in Maryland, one in California, one in Oregon...
-Okay. -...challenging
the constitutionality
of a so-called assault-weapons ban.
They're not really assault weapons.
They're not weapons of war at all.
They're semi-automatic rifles.
And beyond that, not everybody
wants to vote for this in Olympia, too.
You'll find a lot of people who are opposed to it,
for not just the reason
that there are pending federal lawsuits,
but they just think it's the wrong way to go.
If you look at the FBI Uniform Crime statistics
for any given year,
rifles of any kind, including semi-automatics,
are used in a fraction of homicides in the country,
anywhere from 2% to 4%,
and yet they always seem to fall into the focus
simply because of the appearance of these things.
But they don't operate any differently
than any other semi-automatic rifle
like the Winchester 100 or Remington 7600.
They're basically semi-automatic rifles.
One press of the trigger,
one thing goes bang, and that's it.
-And just with regard to that, do you think this is
going to have an impact on public safety that is positive?
I know a lot of lawmakers think so.
-Well, a lot of lawmakers can think what they want.
I'm not sure if it is or not,
because the most prevalent firearm
involved in crime is a handgun.
And we already know handguns
are protected by the Second Amendment.
And it's not too much of a stretch of anybody's imagination
that in the aftermath of the Bruen ruling
back in June of last year...
-U.S. Supreme Court. -Right.
I think that the lower federal courts
are probably going to come down on the side of
these things are protected by the Constitution.
So banning them is going to be pretty tough.
-Got it. And I'm going to come back to that legal argument
in just a little bit, but, Dylan, I just wanted
to talk about this because I've heard it from
a number of different people who are in favor of making sure
that their gun rights are protected here,
that this really wouldn't have
that much of an impact on public safety.
You heard what Dave was talking about with handguns,
that those are actually more prevalent in crime here,
this is only going to restrict the rights
of law-abiding people.
I want to make sure I cover that point with you.
-Yeah, sure. Well, to just point out,
there's a big difference between a semi-automatic .22
and a AR-15 with a 30-round magazine, right?
One is able to shoot 30 rounds into a crowd of people
in less than a minute.
And the other is just simply not capable
of doing that -- that level of damage.
I'll also say that these --
And we'll talk about this more, but...
Time and time again, for the last several decades,
federal courts at the Court of Appeals level
have upheld firearms regulations
and gun-safety laws as constitutional.
We can dig into that a little bit more.
-Okay. please. Yeah. -But for sure, yeah.
I mean, these laws
are just not in conflict with the Second Amendment.
-There was a poll back in December.
Crosscut-Elway did this up.
And 56% of the people that were polled said,
"We would support a ban on the sale
or transfer of most semi-automatic weapons."
You have a lot of legislators, you have a lot of people
in the public who are saying, "We don't want these guns
to be bought and sold." Can you respond to that?
-Sure.
First, remember that most of these appellate court rulings
that Dylan mentioned,
that was prior to the Bruen ruling of last June.
And the courts are going to have to
go through a lot of those cases, I think,
because they're going to have to be reconsidered.
Now, as far as the public opinion polls,
I think we're all pretty happy that constitutional rights
are not subject to public opinion polls.
A right is a right, and it's very special.
We don't decide rights at the voting booth.
We don't decide rights by taking an opinion poll.
That's a right.
-I want to, if I could, move on to House Bill 1143 here.
So, this is the measure establishing
a 10-day waiting period to purchase a firearm
and mandatory safety training.
As you remember, everybody, Washington voters
approved a 10-day waiting period
to purchase semi-automatic guns in 2018,
so we already have that in place.
Dave, let me ask you this question here.
What are your thoughts about this idea,
expanding that waiting period to all firearms
and also adding in that safety training requirement?
-Well, how long of a waiting period do you put on
any other constitutionally protected right?
I don't know of any.
You don't have to wait to vote.
You don't have to wait to get an attorney
if you're in trouble.
I mean, you have rights to exercise there.
I'm not sure that it would help at all.
People who are determined to commit mayhem
are going to do it.
And I think time and again we've seen that happen.
The guy that fired all those shots
and killed all those people in Las Vegas,
he spent, well, months, if not a couple of years
getting the firearms that he used in that thing.
And a 10-day waiting period,
he'd have probably thought, "Big deal."
If that had been the law at that time,
I don't think it would have stopped him at all.
And at the same time,
how much of an inconvenience do you want to put
on a law-abiding citizen
who has committed no crime at all?
-Fair enough. And, Dylan, do you have a response
to this piece about the waiting period, the training, et cetera?
-Yeah, absolutely.
I will say that a 10-day waiting period --
And the more, you know,
we can delay folks in crisis from obtaining a firearm --
-We're talking about suicide potentially here.
-75% of firearm deaths in Washington state are suicides.
Right? So, you know...
I mean, it has impacts on domestic violence.
It has impacts on suicide rates.
It has impacts on homicide rates, as well.
But putting a barrier between the immediate availability
of a firearm, who -- Somebody could be in crisis
and the person across the counter
may not be able to evaluate that appropriately.
Just a mandatory 10-day waiting period
is a wonderful public-health...
-If I could follow up on that training piece -- Excuse me.
Just to follow up on that training piece,
I talked to one instructor who was saying,
we put a big demand out there for gun-safety courses,
it could be months, it could be a year
before a law-abiding citizen could actually get a firearm.
Do you have some thoughts about that?
-Well, you know, the safety training courses
that are delineated in the bill
are the ones that are already publicly available
as incentivized by 1639, passed in 2018.
So these are not -- They don't --
The current version of the bill
does not include a live-fire training course,
which, you know, raises the cost a little bit.
It does make things a little less available.
So we kept that in mind when we were drafting this,
the current version of the bill.
-Yeah. Got it. Dave, did you have a response to this piece?
-Well, I'm a certified firearms instructor.
-That's right.
-And, frankly, I don't know why anybody should be forced
to take a training course in order
to exercise a constitutionally protected right.
I'm not saying that training is a bad idea. That's nonsense.
Everybody who owns a firearm should avail themselves,
whether it's a woman or man, to get competent training
from a competent firearms instructor,
especially if they bought a gun for personal protection.
But the notion that you have to go do something
that might cost you a bit of money
in order to exercise a right that's protected
by both the state and federal constitutions,
I'm not sure that could even fly if it was tested in court.
You know, we're in a whole new era right now
because of the Bruen ruling. -Mm-hmm.
-And I think a lot of ground still has to be plowed
to depend on what is right under the Constitution
and what can be expanded in terms of gun control.
-Yeah. Yeah. I promise we'll get to those legal issues.
But did you have any rejoinder to that
that you wanted to bring up, Dylan,
with regard to the training and the requirement
forcing people essentially to have this training?
-Yeah, I mean, I think we want to incentivize
responsible firearms ownership. And part of the safety training
is about just understanding the data
surrounding owning a firearm and safe storage practices,
things like that, making sure that folks
lock up their firearms and safely store them
so they don't get accessed by a minor or prohibited person.
Right? These are just basic,
basic public health safety measures that we -- you know,
we educate people on their medication.
We ask folks to take a driving course for their license.
None of that's immediate.
You can't just walk in and get a car without a license.
Right? We want to make sure that we're making sure
that folks are as safe as possible.
-Wait a minute. -Please.
-Driving is not a constitutionally-protected
right, driving is a privilege, and you know it.
Don't start comparing driving with owning a firearm,
which is protected by the Constitution.
You know, that is such a specious argument.
And even the governor brought that up here
a couple of months back.
And I just had to roll my eyes because he knows better.
-I would like to move on to Senate Bill 5078
here, if I could.
This would make gun sellers and manufacturers
legally liable for the negligent sale of a firearm.
And this is something that states like California,
Delaware, New Jersey and New York have put into law.
Dylan, I wanted to bring this up because the basic thought
is if you're a victim of gun violence,
you can potentially sue a gun seller or manufacturer.
And I wanted to ask how this would work,
because federally, we have this 2005
Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.
I know you're all familiar with this.
Basically, it says the gun industry cannot be held liable
for the harm coming from its products.
Some thoughts about what this bill is talking about,
5078?
-Yeah, well, I think it's -- you know,
it's important that we incentivize industries
that have a public health risk to make sure
that they are engaging with their sales and folks
who are purchasing and acquiring firearms,
just making sure that we're as safe as possible.
And, you know, we want to make sure
that we disincentivize inappropriate behavior,
including advertising practices that target younger folks
or over militarized,
you know, sort of advertising practices
and just making sure that the firearm industry members
are responsible members of society.
And like we hold cigarette manufacturers accountable
for the public health threat that they pose on society
or fire or vehicle manufacturers for a faulty product,
We want to make sure that folks in the industry
are being incentivized to behave responsibly.
-A legal method by the states has been successful
in some cases, notably for the families of the nine victims
of the Sandy Hook shootings in Connecticut.
They won $73 million in a settlement
with Remington in that case. -Well...
-And I wanted to talk about this --
just what impact do you think a measure like 5078
could have in the state of Washington if it passes?
-Remington didn't settle anything.
Remington's insurers settled that.
Remington didn't even exist when that happened.
Remington, at that time -- -They were found liable,
though -- -They had been dissolved,
and the insurance companies cut their losses.
They decided to go along with that.
The notion that you hold somebody's responsible
financially for the harm that's created by someone else
using their product --
believe me, the auto manufacturers
are watching this one really closely.
Again, I think we're going to have to fall back
on what is constitutional. Cigarettes --
there's nothing in the Bill of Rights about smoking.
And nobody thought about vehicles back in 1791.
And that's where the Supreme Court ruling has taken us.
-Trying to guide us in that way. -And so here again,
I think that when they run up against the federal law,
especially in light of the Bruen ruling,
we're going to see a lot of attorneys
making a lot of money. -Okay.
I guess I just want to get to that basic point, though.
What responsibility does the gun industry
have to reduce gun violence?
Do you think they have none? I mean, what are you saying?
-I don't know anybody in the firearms industry
who isn't responsible.
I know a lot of those people. I've dealt with them for years.
No gun maker that I know of has ever marketed a firearm
just so somebody could go out and commit mayhem with it.
-Okay. -You look at the number
of firearms that are owned in the United States right now,
somewhere north of 400 million, according to some estimates,
and only a small fraction of those firearms are ever involved
in a violent crime. -Okay.
-The numbers here in Washington state
are kind of reflective of that. We've probably got
a million and a half to 2 million gun owners
in this state.
I know we've got almost 700,000 concealed
pistol licenses in this state.
Okay.- -And rarely do any
of those people ever get involved in a violent crime.
And so the gun manufacturers market their products
to the responsible consumer.
If those guns are stolen or whatever,
they could be involved in a crime.
-I just think about this, though, Dave.
I mean, when you see ads like Bushmaster
saying, "Your man card is being reissued,"
and there's a photo of an AR-15, I mean,
what goes through your mind when you see
something like that? Because I think some of
these ads can be inflammatory in some ways.
-Well...
I look at those ads as maybe trying to sell a product
to some 20-something guy who who wants to play Rambo.
I don't know. I mean,
you look at those things and you wonder, "Gee,
maybe that's -- that's not what would appeal to me
as a firearms owner, as somebody who wanted to buy one."
But, you know, they have a broad audience out there
and sometimes, that gets people to buy em.
I don't think that appeals to the kids at all.
I think that's the early -- the 20-something people
that are looking for maybe a gun to shoot a three gun match
or they want to go out and compete someplace.
Yeah. -You know, that's --
that's the kind of mentality I think that's doing.
-I think Dave just said it. We don't want to market firearms
to 20-somethings that want to play Rambo.
Right? That's very dangerous, right?
We can't control for whether a young man
who might have -- be experiencing
a mental health crisis
or be ideologically motivated to violence.
We certainly don't want to take the risk of advertising firearms
to that person. And I will say, you know,
Dave said that they're not advertising to children.
I push back on that. There actually are
a growing number of advertisements from the --
from the firearms industry, specifically targeting children
to try to make sure that when they do turn of age,
that they're buying their products.
There's an AR Junior product on the market right now
that is a scale model, AR-15
that doesn't shoot live rounds, of course,
but it specifically, like, looks like Dad's gun, right?
If that's not marketing to kids, I don't know what is.
-All right. And let me -- I want to make sure
I dive into some of these legal issues.
Dave brought this up earlier with this Bruen decision here.
Are you worried that any changes the state makes to our gun laws,
if these measures do pass,
would not survive a court challenge?
-The Bruen decision and Heller before it does not say
that firearm safety laws are unconstitutional
and that all gun safety laws are unconstitutional.
In fact, both Scalia in the Heller case
and in both the majority
and concurring opinions for Bruen state,
"This is not to be interpreted as an end
all on firearms regulation laws."
It just isn't that, right?
So Bruen, at an 80,000 foot level,
was challenging a case in New York
that had a process by which they issue CPLs,
it's called "shall issue."
So that law enforcement could use discretion
on whether or not they actually permitted somebody
to own a CPL based on local law enforcement discretion.
That was the part that was ruled unconstitutional.
And the other important part of Bruen
is that they ended what's called the two-step test.
And I promise I'm going to go quickly as possible.
-Please, yeah, yeah do it., -So the two-step test
was a process by which courts of appeals around the country
processed Second Amendment claims.
The first step being whether or not the government
can prove that the regulated behavior
or the dispositional behavior around the firearm
that they're looking to regulate
is outside the scope of the original intent
of the Second Amendment. That was step one.
Step two is an evaluation or an analysis
on whether or not the law -- at how close the law gets to
what they interpret as the core of the Second Amendment,
and what the legal -- the law's burden on the right is.
And so they're looking for the government to prove
that the law does not impugn the core of the Second Amendment.
And up until very recently, like Dave says,
courts of appeals interpreted that core as self-defense
in the home, per Heller.
Now, what's happened after Bruen is that two-step test
has been thrown out and firearms laws
are now going to be looked at under the lens
of historical analysis and historical precedent.
Luckily, there's an ocean of historical precedent
around firearms law around the country
that we're starting to look at more deeply.
And why that's -- even with that, why it's so dangerous,
why the Bruens decision is so dangerous is,
you know, in 1810, 1820,
the concept of domestic violence, for example,
and a prohibited person around those behaviors
was completely different.
Women were more viewed as property, for example.
And it just sets us up for some strange legal challenges
and potentially dangerous rulings.
-Got it. Dave, a lot to unpack there.
Some thoughts about Bruen and what Dylan's saying.
-I'm not too sure Bruen was dangerous at all.
I think Bruen reminded us that there's a constitution
and that we have to live by it.
We just can't invent things as we go along.
And that's been the problem ever since the Heller ruling.
The lower federal courts decided to create this two step process.
The Supreme Court last year said, "No, wait a minute.
That's not the way this works."
And I think Clarence Thomas was a genius when he wrote that.
He said, "No, we can't do that.
We're going to stick with the Constitution
because that's -- that's what the country lives by."
I don't know that that's dangerous at all.
Yes, we've got people who commit crimes, dating back all the way
to Adam and Eve and their sons, Cain and Abel.
Cain used a rock. He didn't get a -- you know,
it wasn't the rock's fault, it was Cain's fault.
-Okay. Okay. Alright.
I appreciate all this back and forth, and we need to wrap up.
If we can do the 30-second version,
I'd really appreciate it.
Dylan, some final thoughts for lawmakers
working on these issues in Olympia.
-It's the right thing to do.
You know, we expect that these laws
will be challenged in court. I think almost everything
that we've passed in the last several years,
especially at the ballot initiative level,
has been challenged.
They've been upheld.
We are in a little place in limbo in the Ninth Circuit.
Like Dave says, there are some things waiting to be
ruled on and some things that have gone back and forth.
But it's not so certain or it's not such a precarious position
where we shouldn't do anything.
And we feel really confident about our ability
to defend those things.
And I mean, the slate of gun violence
prevention policies on the docket this year
are altogether a huge step forward
in public safety and public health.
-Thank you. 30-second version, David, wrap up.
-Well, I'm not sure if it's a step forward
to do something that's unconstitutional.
We've got to keep that in perspective.
And the ballot initiative that's still in the court,
it's still alive.
And frankly, it was kicked back for further consideration
because of the Bruen ruling.
So as I said earlier, the Bruen ruling, you know,
we're going to be exploring a lot of strange,
interesting ground from now on because of that.
-Okay. Thank you both for your input here.
And we will be right back.
♪♪
-What are people saying on social media about the proposal
to ban so-called assault weapons?
One person writes...
Another person says...
We'd like to know what you think.
Send us an e-mail at contact@SeattleChannel.org
or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
-Coming up next week, more than half a million
Washingtonians face a hunger cliff
as federal pandemic food benefits come to an end.
With increasing food prices and shrinking donations,
area food banks are struggling to keep their shelves stocked.
Hear from Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
and other leaders about the urgent work
to combat food insecurity and alleviate poverty in our state.
That's on the next "City Inside Out."
I hope you join us.
♪♪