Land­mark leg­is­la­tion request­ed by Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son and Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee that would sub­ject the gun indus­try to much need­ed account­abil­i­ty won approval in the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate today by a vote of 28 to 21.

“The Firearm Indus­try Respon­si­bil­i­ty & Gun Vio­lence Vic­tims’ Access to Jus­tice Act ensures that firearms man­u­fac­tur­ers and sell­ers will face lia­bil­i­ty if they fail to estab­lish, imple­ment and enforce rea­son­able con­trols in the man­u­fac­ture, sale, dis­tri­b­u­tion and mar­ket­ing of firearms to keep them out of the hands of dan­ger­ous indi­vid­u­als,” Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son’s office says.

Prime spon­sored by Sen­a­tor Jamie Ped­er­sen, SSB 5078 would, as described in the non­par­ti­san staff report pre­pared for the sub­sti­tute ver­sion of the bill:

• Require firearm indus­try mem­bers [man­u­fac­tur­ers, deal­ers] to estab­lish, imple­ment and enforce rea­son­able con­trols regard­ing the man­u­fac­ture, sale, dis­tri­b­u­tion, import, use, and mar­ket­ing of the firearm indus­try mem­bers’ firearm and firearm-relat­ed products.
• Pro­hib­it firearm indus­try mem­bers from cre­at­ing or main­tain­ing a pub­lic nui­sance. [Nui­sance means a sub­stan­tial and unrea­son­able inter­fer­ence with the use and enjoy­ment of anoth­er per­son­’s property.]
  
• Autho­rize the attor­ney gen­er­al to inves­ti­gate sus­pect­ed vio­la­tions of
  firearm indus­try mem­bers’ duties and to enforce actions against such firearm indus­try mem­bers.

SSB 5078 is one of three piv­otal gun safe­ty bills under con­sid­er­a­tion in this year’s ses­sion. The oth­ers are a pro­posed assault weapons ban and per­mit to purchase.

Adop­tion of this law would get rid of the legal shield that gun­mak­ers and gun deal­ers cur­rent­ly enjoy, improv­ing access to jus­tice for vic­tims of gun violence.

“This pol­i­cy will ensure that the gun indus­try is treat­ed like every oth­er indus­try and faces real con­se­quences for irre­spon­si­ble con­duct,” Fer­gu­son said. “Today’s impor­tant vote is a sig­nif­i­cant step toward improv­ing pub­lic safe­ty in Washington.”

“This leg­is­la­tion pro­vides account­abil­i­ty for a gun indus­try that has too often failed to take nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions to pre­vent guns from get­ting into the wrong hands,” Gov­er­nor Inslee said. “Indus­try neg­li­gence costs lives — this bill lets the indus­try know we won’t abide this sta­tus quo any longer.”

“We must ensure that firearms deal­ers and man­u­fac­tur­ers are held account­able when they fail to keep weapons out of the hands of dan­ger­ous indi­vid­u­als,” Sen­a­tor Ped­er­sen (D‑43rd Dis­trict: Seat­tle) said. “Vic­tims of gun vio­lence in our state deserve access to jus­tice. It is past time for the gun indus­try to face real con­se­quences for irre­spon­si­ble sales and mar­ket­ing practices.”

SSB 5078 is sim­i­lar to leg­is­la­tion already adopt­ed in Delaware, New York, New Jer­sey, and Cal­i­for­nia that has with­stood legal chal­lenges from the right wing.

The roll call on SSB 5078 was as follows:

SB 5078
Firearm indus­try duties
3rd Read­ing & Final Passage
3/2/2023

Yeas: 28; Nays: 21

Vot­ing Yea: Sen­a­tors Bil­lig, Cleve­land, Con­way, Dhin­gra, Frame, Hasegawa, Hunt, Kauff­man, Keis­er, Kud­er­er, Liias, Lovelett, Lovick, Mul­let, Nguyen, Nobles, Ped­er­sen, Ran­dall, Robin­son, Rolfes, Sal­daña, Salomon, Shew­make, Stan­ford, Trudeau, Valdez, Well­man, Wil­son (Claire)

Vot­ing Nay: Sen­a­tors Boehnke, Braun, Dozi­er, For­tu­na­to, Gildon, Hawkins, Holy, King, MacEwen, McCune, Muz­za­ll, Pad­den, Rivers, Schoesler, Short, Tor­res, Van De Wege, Wag­oner, War­nick, Wil­son (Jeff), Wil­son (Lyn­da)

Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tor Kevin Van De Wege (D‑24th Dis­trict: Olympic Penin­su­la) vot­ed against the leg­is­la­tion. Oth­er­wise, the vote was along par­ty lines, with Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tors sup­port­ive and Repub­li­cans opposed.

The bill now heads to the House for fur­ther consideration.

One of Van De Wege’s col­leagues from the 24th, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Steve Tharinger, is a spon­sor of the House com­pan­ion bill, HB 1130, which did not advance in that cham­ber (owing to the Sen­ate’s pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of SB 5078).

NPI thanks the Sen­ate for once again vot­ing to pro­tect our com­mu­ni­ties from the scourge of gun vio­lence. Mass shoot­ings and sui­cides com­mit­ted with a firearm are pre­ventable. New laws like SSB 5078 will save lives and ensure jus­tice for fam­i­lies trag­i­cal­ly afflict­ed by gun violence.