NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Friday, February 23rd, 2018

Victory! Washington State House passes bill to ban bump fire stocks (trigger modifiers)

Leg­is­la­tion to ban bump stocks, also known as trig­ger mod­i­fi­ca­tion devices, took anoth­er step towards land­ing on Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee’s desk today when the Wash­ing­ton State House vot­ed deci­sive­ly to pass ESB 5992.

Orig­i­nal­ly spon­sored by Sen­a­tor Kevin Van De Wege, ESB 5992 would:

… estab­lish crim­i­nal penal­ties and sen­tenc­ing pro­vi­sions relat­ing to the man­u­fac­ture, sale, pur­chase, pos­ses­sion, trans­fer, or trans­port of bump-fire stocks, or the use of a firearm con­tain­ing a bump-fire stock in the com­mis­sion of a felony.

The bill cleared the Sen­ate on a twen­ty-nine to twen­ty vote weeks ago. Today, after being amend­ed on the floor of the House, it received a vote there.

“The peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton are count­ing on us to take action and ensure our com­mu­ni­ties are safe from gun vio­lence,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Tana Senn (D‑41st Dis­trict: Belle­vue, Mer­cer Island, New­cas­tle) after the pas­sage of the bill. “This may be a small step, but it is a step toward mak­ing our com­mu­ni­ties safer.”

The roll call was as follows:

ESB 5992
Bump-fire stocks
House vote on Final Pas­sage as Amend­ed by the House
2/23/2018

Yeas: 56; Nays: 41; Excused: 1

Vot­ing Yea: Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Apple­ton, Bergquist, Caldier, Chap­man, Clib­born, Cody, Doglio, Dolan, Fey, Fitzgib­bon, Frame, Good­man, Graves, Gregerson, Haler, Hansen, Harmsworth, Hud­gins, Jink­ins, John­son, Kagi, Kil­duff, Kir­by, Klo­ba, Lovick, Lyt­ton, Macri, McBride, Mor­ris, Nealey, Orms­by, Ortiz-Self, Orwall, Pel­lic­ciot­ti, Peter­son, Pet­ti­grew, Pol­let, Reeves, Ric­cel­li, Robin­son, Ryu, San­tos, Sawyer, Sells, Senn, Slat­ter, Springer, Stam­baugh, Stan­ford, Stonier, Sul­li­van, Tar­leton, Tharinger, Valdez, Wylie, Mr. Speaker

Vot­ing Nay: Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Barkis, Blake, Buys, Chan­dler, Con­dot­ta, DeBolt, Dent, Dye, Eslick, Grif­fey, Har­grove, Har­ris, Hayes, Holy, Irwin, Jenkin, Klip­pert, Kraft, Kretz, Kris­tiansen, MacEwen, Man­weller, May­cum­ber, McCabe, McCaslin, McDon­ald, Muri, Orcutt, Pike, Rodne, Schmick, Shea, Steele, Stokes­bary, Tay­lor, Van Wer­ven, Vick, Volz, Walsh, Wilcox, Young

Excused: Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Smith

Sev­en Repub­li­cans vot­ed in favor of pass­ing the bill, includ­ing Michelle Caldier, Paul Graves, Lar­ry Haler, Mark Harmsworth, Norm John­son, Ter­ri Nealey, and Melanie Stam­baugh. Demo­c­ra­t­ic State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bri­an Blake (an out­spo­ken gun enthu­si­ast and sup­port­er of the Nation­al Rifle Asso­ci­a­tion) vot­ed nay.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Graves (R‑5th Dis­trict: Issaquah, Sno­qualmie, Maple Val­ley, North Bend) offered a floor amend­ment requir­ing the Wash­ing­ton State Patrol to “estab­lish and admin­is­ter a bump-fire stock buy-back pro­gram to allow a per­son to relin­quish a bump-fire stock to the WSP or par­tic­i­pat­ing local law enforce­ment agen­cies in exchange for a mon­e­tary pay­ment of $150.” This was adopted.

Since the House has changed the bill, it will now have to go back to the Sen­ate for a con­cur­rence vote before it can be sent to Gov­er­nor Inslee.

NPI sin­cere­ly thanks the fifty-six state rep­re­sen­ta­tives who vot­ed in favor of ESB 5992 as amend­ed. There is so much more we can do to pre­vent gun vio­lence, but this bill gets us a lit­tle bit clos­er to a future where strong gun safe­ty laws are in place to pro­tect our peo­ple. The bipar­ti­san sup­port this bill received in both the Wash­ing­ton State House and Sen­ate is wel­come and encouraging.

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