The Washington state legislature convened on Monday January 11th behind fences manned by the Washington National Guard. Due to covid19 many legislators are working remotely and constituents have new tools to engage them from across the state. Please look at them here: ttps://leg.wa.gov/legislature/Documents/2020/Accessing%20the%20Legislature%20remotely.pdf That document; “Accessing the Legislature Remotely”; explains the process, tells how to watch, how to participate, how to track legislation and how to contact legislators. Important information in a year that’s going to be extremely busy for your gun rights.
Starting right off there are ten bills filed, please focus on these first two right now:
Assault Weapons SB 5217- https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?Year=2021&BillNumber=5217
And Magazines
HB1164- https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?Year=2021&BillNumber=1164
& SB5078- https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?Year=2021&BillNumber=5078
For those following along, you’ll recognize these as bills Attorney General Bob Ferguson has submitted before. Each of those links is the “Bill Page” for the bill. At each bill page there’s a “Comment on this bill” link on the upper right. And down under Available Documents is a link for the “Original Bill” which has all the details including who it’s sponsors are, when it was filed and what committee (if any) it’s referred to.
Once a bill is in committee that committee’s chair has the power to give it a hearing and then call for the committee to vote it to the floor for wider action. Bills are filed, referred to committee, or on the floor. At each point we have the ability to give input and steer our public servants to change or vote against. As the Democrats have a majority in both the House and Senate, they have selected the committee Chairs. And as these bills have the support of A.G. Ferguson and of Gov. Inslee they will certainly get attention, we have to be sure a good portion of that comes from people on the side of Liberty.
It is vital that everyone who supports our Right to Keep and Bear Arms involve themselves in the process and tell their public servants the importance of not passing any gun control.
And, because the process is entirely remote, there are no early morning drives to Olympia just a need to methodically and professionally engage and communicate to our elected representatives. So please go to the bill pages for the Assault Weapons ban and the ban on Standard magazines, check out the bills and make your voice heard on the comment link. Be courteous, thoughtful and represent your rights. Follow up to committee, as well as other bills and tools will be in next weeks alert. If there are questions I can answer for you, or for a copy of this in email please email boyd@liberty.seanet.com.