WA Permit-to-Purchas Bill Advances and Here’s Why It Shouldn’t

There’s a profound desire among gun control advocates to push a handful of laws such as permit-to-purchase requirements. This turns people’s Second Amendment rights into Second Amendment privileges, which is probably part of why they want it, at least unofficially. They claim it’s to make people safer.

As it stands, you have to go through a background check to buy a gun from a licensed dealer, and in some states, you have to get one for any gun sale, even a private transfer.

But Washington state Democrats seem to believe that they need a permit-to-purchase law, so they’re advancing one.

Washington state lawmakers advanced a bill Thursday requiring a “permit-to-purchase” to buy and possess firearms.

The Appropriations Committee approved House Bill 1163 on Thursday, setting the stage for the Rules Committee to schedule a floor debate before sending it to the Senate for consideration. If approved, Washington would join several states mandating the permit system.

Former Gov. Jay Inslee asked his party to pass the legislation years ago, but attempts in 2023 ended with Democrats removing the “permit-to-purchase language.” Instead, the Legislature passed a bill requiring mandatory background checks, waiting periods and safety training.

“This bill proposes a permit-to-purchase system for firearms that requires background checks and some safety training,” Rep. Nicole Macri, D-Seattle, said regarding HB 1163.

Building on the existing language, HB 1163 retains most of the existing requirements while adding the new permit system. If approved, the Washington State Patrol would issue a permit-to-purchase rather than dealers verifying the completion of a safety course.

According to HB 1163, the permit would be valid for five years, similar to the safety courses currently required to purchase a firearm. However, the proposal now requires live-fire training and an annual WSP review to ensure all permit holders “remain eligible to possess firearms.”

The thing is, this looks a lot like the requirements Connecticut put in place years ago.

That measure was the subject of a study that argued the law led to a massive decrease in homicides. Of course, this doesn’t make a lot of sense to many of us because criminals–the people who carry out most of the homicides–aren’t buying guns from local gun stores.

Luckily, we know why the study reached that finding. We also know just how useless that study is, as Cam wrote several years ago:

First, the drop in homicides in Connecticut wasn’t based on a comparison between previous years, or the United States as a whole. Instead, researchers crafted a “synthetic Connecticut” comprised of portions of Rhode Island, California, and several other states and compared those homicide totals to Connecticut’s post-permit murder rate. That’s bad enough, but what makes it egregiously worse is that the researcher’s own data showed that the “drop” in Connecticut’s murder rate was short-lived, and that within a few years the gun homicide rate in the real Connecticut was actually more than 40% higher than it was in the synthetic state dreamt up by the academics.

In short, it accomplished absolutely nothing at best and may have created an uptick in homicides later down the road at worst.

Now, no amount of “it’s for public safety” is going to sway me from my gun rights position. It’s just not going to happen. However, a lot of people are swayed by those kinds of arguments. They’re willing to forfeit some liberty for safety, and while they might deserve neither because of it, they’re going to take us down with them.

The problem, though, is that permit-to-purchase requirements take away liberty and offer absolutely no safety. The researchers who touted these measures own data prove that it doesn’t. 

I get the desire for safety. I truly do. That’s why I have guns, after all. 

I also get that not everyone sees that as the solution. 

But at least look at the data here and stop peddling an infringement on liberty that offers absolutely no safety at all. 

Especially since, in the post-Bruen judicial landscape, it’s pretty hard to see such requirements as anything but doomed to be overturned sooner or later anyway. Why spend the time, effort, and political capital to get something passed that will never fly with the courts in the long term, won’t make people safer anyway, and will just be a disaster overall?

Then again, if they had any sense, they wouldn’t be anti-gunners, now would they?