NRA can expect another defeat this fall: NPI poll finds massive support for I‑1491 in WA

The Nation­al Rifle Asso­ci­a­tion and the gun lob­by arrayed around it may have a lot of influ­ence in Con­gress and state leg­is­la­tures around the coun­try, includ­ing Wash­ing­ton’s, but an over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of vot­ers in the Ever­green State are ready to stand up to them and once again vote to strength­en gun safe­ty laws, a recent sur­vey con­duct­ed for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute has found.

In Novem­ber of 2014, the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton mem­o­rably defied the NRA and vot­ed for uni­ver­sal back­ground checks on gun sales with I‑594. That law remains in place today. But there is more we can do to pre­vent gun violence.

That’s why, for the last few months, the Wash­ing­ton Alliance for Gun Respon­si­bil­i­ty has been work­ing to qual­i­fy I‑1491 to the bal­lot. I‑1491, which NPI sup­ports, is based on leg­is­la­tion that did­n’t make it out of the state­house in Olympia, and would give judges the author­i­ty to tem­porar­i­ly bar a per­son from access­ing firearms.

Here’s how it would work:

Extreme Risk Pro­tec­tion Orders are mod­eled on our well-estab­lished sys­tems of Domes­tic Vio­lence and Sex­u­al Assault Pro­tec­tion Orders with care­ful pro­tec­tions for due process and stan­dards for evi­dence. After a fam­i­ly mem­ber files a peti­tion, the court holds a hear­ing and deter­mines whether the per­son pos­es a seri­ous threat of vio­lence to them­selves or oth­ers. The judge can issue an order restrict­ing access to firearms for up to one year and can also refer the per­son in cri­sis for eval­u­a­tion to ensure they get the help they need.

Once a peti­tion is filed, the court noti­fies the sub­ject and a hear­ing is held. If the evi­dence of a threat is upheld by a judge, the order is put in place for one year and can be renewed annu­al­ly should cir­cum­stances war­rant. The sub­ject may request one hear­ing a year to rescind the order. Vio­la­tion of the order car­ries a crim­i­nal penalty.

Last month, on NPI’s behalf, Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling asked a sam­ple of like­ly Wash­ing­ton vot­ers how they would vote on I‑1491 if the elec­tion were being held now. Vot­ers were read the bal­lot title (which is how I‑1491 will be pre­sent­ed on the bal­lot) and asked to respond. Here’s the word­ing of the ques­tion and the answers:

There will be a mea­sure on Wash­ing­ton’s Novem­ber 2016 bal­lot called Ini­tia­tive 1491. The descrip­tion reads as fol­lows: Ini­tia­tive Mea­sure No. 1491 con­cerns court-issued extreme risk pro­tec­tion orders tem­porar­i­ly pre­vent­ing access to firearms. This mea­sure would allow police, fam­i­ly, or house­hold mem­bers to obtain court orders tem­porar­i­ly pre­vent­ing firearms access by per­sons exhibit­ing men­tal ill­ness, vio­lent or oth­er behav­ior indi­cat­ing they may harm them­selves or oth­ers. If the elec­tion were being held now, would you def­i­nite­ly vote yes, prob­a­bly vote yes, prob­a­bly vote no, or def­i­nite­ly vote no on Ini­tia­tive 1491?

• Yes: 73%
  • Def­i­nite­ly vote yes: 56%
  • Prob­a­bly vote yes: 17%
• No: 21%
  • Prob­a­bly vote no: 11%
  • Def­i­nite­ly vote no: 10%
• Not sure: 5%

This sur­vey of 679 like­ly Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers was in the field from June 14th-15th, 2016; all respon­dents par­tic­i­pat­ed via land­line. The poll has a mar­gin of error of +/- 3.8% at the 95% con­fi­dence level.

The over­all “Yes” fig­ure is cer­tain­ly impres­sive (73%!), but what real­ly stands out is that an out­right major­i­ty of vot­ers fall into the Def­i­nite­ly vote yes camp. That 56% num­ber sug­gests that most Wash­ing­to­ni­ans are very enthu­si­as­tic about I‑1491.

Many ini­tia­tives start out of the gate with good topline num­bers, but their sup­port can be shal­low… a mile wide and an inch deep, as the old adage goes. Our research sug­gests that the cam­paign to pass I‑1491 does not have that problem.

The NRA and the gun lob­by will prob­a­bly mount a vocal NO cam­paign. But as we proved in 2014, the NRA and the gun lob­by can be defeat­ed at the bal­lot. Gun vio­lence is pre­ventable, and with smart, strong, and effec­tive laws like I‑1491, we can save lives and expand free­dom for all.

The Unit­ed States Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence, adopt­ed two hun­dred and forty years ago by the Con­ti­nen­tal Con­gress, mem­o­rably declares, “We hold these truths to be self-evi­dent, that all men are cre­at­ed equal, that they are endowed by their Cre­ator with cer­tain unalien­able Rights, that among these are Life, Lib­er­ty and the pur­suit of Hap­pi­ness.” These impor­tant and inspir­ing words have res­onat­ed with Amer­i­cans through­out our coun­try’s his­to­ry. Gen­er­a­tions of pro­gres­sive activists have tire­less­ly worked to expand free­dom to make these words less hol­low and more mean­ing­ful for their chil­dren and their chil­dren’s children.

Pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions suc­ceed­ed in abol­ish­ing legal­ized slav­ery, out­law­ing oppres­sive child labor, and advanc­ing civ­il rights for minori­ties. We now have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to build on the progress they have made. Our coun­try faces a gun vio­lence epi­dem­ic that threat­ens all of the unalien­able rights explic­it­ly men­tioned in the Unit­ed States Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence. If we tru­ly believe in the idea that every one of us has the right to life, lib­er­ty, and the pur­suit of hap­pi­ness, then we need to act to pro­tect lives from being cru­el­ly and unnec­es­sar­i­ly cut short by gun violence.

I‑1491 is no panacea, but it will make our com­mu­ni­ties safer, espe­cial­ly in con­junc­tion with I‑594 and oth­er need­ed reforms.

Con­trary to what the gun lob­by says, stronger gun safe­ty laws do work — the expe­ri­ence of oth­er coun­tries teach­es us this. We do not have to accept rou­tine mass slaugh­ters as a grim real­i­ty in this coun­try. With sen­si­ble laws like I‑1491, we can do a bet­ter job of look­ing out for and pro­tect­ing each oth­er from harm, while still allow­ing respon­si­ble, law-abid­ing cit­i­zens to bear arms.