Washington State Senate Approves Expanded List of ‘Sensitive Places’

Public parks, government buildings and other locations where children are “likely to be present” may soon be off-limits to some lawful carry in the state of Washington after the Democrat-controlled Senate in Olympia approved a new gun control measure on Wednesday. 

SB 5098 was previously amended to exempt those with valid concealed carry licenses from the new list of “gun-free zones”, so its effects will be more limited than the bill’s sponsor originally intended, but given his comments on the Senate floor gun owners should expect future efforts to remove that carveout so the legislation would apply to all forms of carry. 

Sen. Javier Valdez, D-Seattle, the sponsor of the measure, said the state has “made great progress in keeping people safe” from gun violence, and that he believed gun-free zones improve public safety. It’s critical, he said, to expand the prohibitions to more public spaces.

“This bill is about keeping families — in particular, of course, where kids are gathering — safe,” Valdez said. 

You don’t keep people safe by preventing them from being able to protect themselves or their families, which is exactly what Valdez is trying to do. It’s not like public parks and playgrounds generally have armed guards or magnetometers at every entrance, so these spaces are “sensitive” in name only. And while a teenage gangbanger who illegally possesses a firearm is unlikely to abide by the “gun-free edict”, a mom or dad who doesn’t want to risk criminal charges for unlawfully carrying is far more likely to render themselves defenseless in order to comply with the bill’s demands. 

Under the legislation, knowingly possessing weapons in the added public spaces is subject to a gross misdemeanor, which typically carries a maximum penalty of 364 days in jail and a fine up to $5,000. New signage would be required at the additional public sites.

A weapon is defined by the bill as “any firearm, explosive as defined in statute, or any instrument of the kind usually known as slungshot, sand club, metal knuckles, or any knife, dagger, dirk, or other similar instrument that is capable of causing death or bodily injury, and is commonly used with the intent to cause death or bodily injury.”

So this isn’t just about making these spaces “gun-free”. Even a pocket knife could be construed as a deadly weapon by an overzealous prosecutor, and SB 5098 poses plenty of legal jeopardy even with the exemption for concealed carry licensees. 

Several Republican lawmakers spoke against the proposal during Wednesday’s floor debate. 

Sen. Jeff Holy, R-Cheney, said he appreciated an amendment added during committee that exempts those with concealed carry permits. He said he believed that everyone has been “battle-hardened” enough to realize that asking those with bad intentions to honor a sign or honor a law won’t work.

“Lawful gun owners are not the problem,” Holy said. 

I’m pretty sure that a number of Holy’s Democratic colleagues in the Senate would disagree with his assertion. Lawful gun owners are a problem for those legislators who want to curtail our right to keep and bear arms. In their view, if we didn’t have legal gun owners we wouldn’t have illegal gun owners either, so anything that can be done to make it harder or legally dangerous to exercise our Second Amendment rights is a step in the right direction. 

SB 5098 now moves over to the House of Representatives, where it’s expected to win approval. Whether or not the bill survives in its current form or is amended once again to remove the exception for concealed carry licencees remains to be seen, but even as-is the legislation is an affront to public safety and our fundamental right to armed self-defense.