BELLEVUE, WA – Washington Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee this morning signed legislation requiring gun buyers to provide proof they have completed a firearms training course before being allowed to complete their transaction, but the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is calling this the equivalence of a “literacy test” that was used to discourage voting by minorities in the South.
“We’re talking about rights in both cases,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “For Jay Inslee or any other Democrat to contend ‘this is different’ suggests they’re either dishonest or delusional, and perhaps a little bit of both.”
House Bill 1143 explicitly states on Page 2 that the purchaser of a firearm provides proof of completion of a recognized firearm safety training program within the last five years that complies with the requirements set down in the second section of the bill. The legislation is part of the radical Democrat push to make Washington gun laws prohibitively restrictive when the Article 1, Section 24 of the state constitution explicitly states, “The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state, shall not be impaired.”
“This requirement, along with the 10-day waiting period, seem like impairments to us,” Gottlieb stated. “When the governor earlier this year compared this requirement to getting training before being issued a license to drive, he ignored one very important point, and he knows it. Driving is a privilege, but keeping and bearing arms is a right protected by both the state and federal constitutions, and there is nothing in either of those provisions about training, or waiting.
“Inslee and the Democrats can couch this any way they want,” he continued, “but it adds up to the same thing. These requirements are designed to discourage Evergreen State citizens from exercising their constitutionally-protected and enumerated rights.
“Democrats in the Legislature are not only at war with Washington gun owners,” Gottlieb concluded, “they have also declared war on the state and federal constitutions, and the built-in protections for law-abiding firearms owners. As we’ve said many times, this isn’t about guns, it’s about rights.”