WA state Supreme Court rules against Edmonds gun storage law - The Seattle Times
OLYMPIA — The Washington Supreme Court has ruled against an Edmonds gun storage ordinance in a court order reaffirming state law that local governments can’t impose their own firearms regulations.
In an opinion signed by all nine justices, the court pointed to the statute that Washington state law “fully occupies and preempts the entire field of firearms regulation within the boundaries of the state.”
The ruling stems from an ordinance, passed by the city of Edmonds in 2018, creating a requirement that people secure their firearms. It allowed for civil fines of as much as $10,000 if an at-risk person or child gained access to an unsecured gun.
The city of Seattle passed a similar law that year, which is also being challenged.
Thursday’s ruling was a legal victory for gun rights organizations, such as the National Rifle Association and the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation, both of which participated in the legal challenge.
In a statement, Alan Gottlieb, founder and vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, called the ruling “a great victory for the principle of state preemption.”
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“This should send a signal to other municipal governments — especially the City of Seattle against which we have a nearly identical pending lawsuit — that they cannot enact their own gun restrictions in violation of state law or the state constitution,” Gottlieb added.
In a statement Thursday, Edmonds Mayor Mike Nelson slammed the court’s ruling.
“The repeated failure of the state and federal government to implement these commonsense safety measures to protect our children from gun violence and then to have the state supreme court deny local governments this right feels barbaric,” Nelson said in prepared remarks.
The court’s decision doesn’t have much broader impact. Washington voters in 2018 passed a ballot initiative that among other things created a statewide safe-storage law, albeit more limited in scope than the Edmonds ordinance.
That statewide safe-storage law — which a federal judge upheld as part of a 2020 ruling on the broader law — doesn’t mandate that firearms owners lock away their firearms.
But under that law, firearm owners could face gross misdemeanor or felony charges for “community endangerment” if someone not allowed to access a gun — such as a person with a felony or a child — gets hold of it and uses it in a crime, displays it in public or causes it to discharge.
Joseph O’Sullivan: 360-236-8268 or [email protected]; on Twitter: @OlympiaJoe. Seattle Times staff reporter Joseph O’Sullivan covers state government and the Legislature.
source: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/wa-state-supreme-court-rules-against-edmonds-gun-storage-law/
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