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.