It’s a his­toric day in the State of Washington.

Today, dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny in the state­house in Olympia, Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee signed into law three piv­otal new gun safe­ty laws: a ban on assault weapons, a per­mit-to-pur­chase require­ment, and a duty to impose rea­son­able con­trols law that gun man­u­fac­tur­ers, dis­trib­u­tors, and sell­ers must abide by.

Flanked by law­mak­ers, activists, and staff, Inslee signed Sen­ate Bill 5078, House Bill 1140, and House Bill 1143, prime spon­sored by Jamie Pedersen/David Hack­ney, Strom Peterson/Patty Kud­er­er, and Liz Berry/Marko Liias, respec­tive­ly. Ped­er­sen, Peter­son, and Berry offered remarks along with Inslee and Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son, whose office request­ed each of the bills.

On behalf of the NPI team, I had the great hon­or of stand­ing along­side rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Alliance for Gun Respon­si­bil­i­ty, Moms Demand Action, Grand­par­ents Against Gun Vio­lence, and oth­er allies as Gov­er­nor Inslee made these bills part of the Revised Code of Washington.

The assault weapons ban (HB 1140) takes effect imme­di­ate­ly, while SB 5078 will take effect on July 23rd. HB 1143 will take effect on Jan­u­ary 1st, 2024.

“Today Wash­ing­ton State is putting the gun indus­try in its place and improv­ing the health, safe­ty and lives of our res­i­dents,” said Gov­er­nor Inslee.

“I want to thank the many leg­is­la­tors and advo­cates who have worked for years to deliv­er some of these poli­cies to the governor’s desk,” he added.

Short­ly after the Gov­er­nor took action, The White House issued a state­ment con­grat­u­lat­ing the State of Wash­ing­ton on the his­toric achievement.

“Today, Wash­ing­ton State has become the tenth state in the nation along­side Wash­ing­ton, D.C. to ban assault weapons and get weapons of war off America’s streets,” said Press Sec­re­tary Karine Jean-Pierre in a statement.

“Pres­i­dent Biden com­mends the lead­er­ship of Wash­ing­ton Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee, and leg­isla­tive lead­ers, as well as the advo­cates, sur­vivors, and elect­ed offi­cials who fought for years to make today a reality.”

“In so doing, they have made every com­mu­ni­ty in the state – from Seat­tle to Spokane and every­where in between – safer and more secure.”

NPI’s research has found strong pub­lic sup­port for each of these bills.

Assault weapons ban (HB 1140)

In June of 2022, we announced at a press con­fer­ence in Kent that a major­i­ty of Wash­ing­ton vot­ers strong­ly sup­port enact­ing an assault weapons ban.

We unveiled our find­ing with Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son, state law­mak­ers, and the Alliance for Gun Respon­si­bil­i­ty just days after the tragedy in Uvalde.

A few weeks lat­er, our find­ing was cor­rob­o­rat­ed by Sur­veyUSA and its part­ners (The Seat­tle Times, KING5, UW, and WSU) in a sep­a­rate poll.

Last month, we found that over­all sup­port for an assault weapons ban had slight­ly increased, from 56% to 58%, a very encour­ag­ing devel­op­ment.

In both sur­veys, the ques­tion we asked was:

QUESTION: Do you strong­ly sup­port, some­what sup­port, some­what oppose, or strong­ly oppose ban­ning the sale, trans­port, man­u­fac­ture, or import of mil­i­tary-style assault weapons like the AR-15 rifle in Wash­ing­ton State?

ANSWERS:

• Sup­port: 58% 
  • Strong­ly sup­port: 51%
  • Some­what sup­port: 7%
• Oppose: 40%
  • Some­what oppose: 8%
  • Strong­ly oppose: 32%
• Not sure: 3%

Permit-to-purchase (HB 1143)

While the assault weapons ban is very pop­u­lar, per­mit to pur­chase is even more so, with near­ly sev­en out of ten like­ly 2024 vot­ers supportive:

QUESTION: Do you strong­ly sup­port, some­what sup­port, some­what oppose, or strong­ly oppose enact­ing a per­mit-to-pur­chase law for firearms, which would require peo­ple who want to buy a gun to get fin­ger­print­ed, take a class in gun safe­ty, and pass an enhanced back­ground check first?

ANSWERS:

• Sup­port: 68% 
  • Strong­ly sup­port: 56%
  • Some­what sup­port: 12%
• Oppose: 29%
  • Some­what oppose: 10%
  • Strong­ly oppose: 19%
• Not sure: 3%

Duty to impose reasonable controls (SB 5078)

The Firearm Indus­try Respon­si­bil­i­ty & Gun Vio­lence Vic­tims’ Access to Jus­tice Act has about as much sup­port over­all as the assault weapons ban, with lit­tle dif­fer­ence in terms of the inten­si­ty of support:

QUESTION: Do you strong­ly sup­port, some­what sup­port, some­what oppose, or strong­ly oppose allow­ing gun man­u­fac­tur­ers and sell­ers to be sued in court if they fail to estab­lish, imple­ment, and enforce rea­son­able con­trols in the man­u­fac­ture, sale, dis­tri­b­u­tion, and mar­ket­ing of guns to keep them out of the hands of dan­ger­ous individuals?

ANSWERS:

• Sup­port: 59% 
  • Strong­ly sup­port: 49%
  • Some­what sup­port: 10%
• Oppose: 36%
  • Some­what oppose: 6%
  • Strong­ly oppose: 30%
• Not sure: 4%

Polling methodology

All of the above ques­tions were asked as part of our win­ter 2023 statewide sur­vey of the Wash­ing­ton State elec­torate. That sur­vey was in the field from Tues­day, March 7th through Wednes­day, March 8th, 2023. It con­sist­ed of inter­views with 874 like­ly 2024 Wash­ing­ton State gen­er­al elec­tion voters.

The poll uti­lizes a blend­ed method­ol­o­gy, with auto­mat­ed phone calls to land­lines (50%) and online answers from cell phone only respon­dents (50%).

It was con­duct­ed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, and has a mar­gin of error of +/- 3.3% at the 95% con­fi­dence interval.

Next: From the court of public opinion to the courts

These impor­tant new laws are all expect­ed to face legal chal­lenges from peo­ple who val­ue guns and access to weapons of war more than the safe­ty of their fel­low Wash­ing­to­ni­ans. Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son and his team are expect­ing these law­suits and will be pre­pared to defend against them.

Fer­gu­son has expe­ri­ence respond­ing to such law­suits, hav­ing defend­ed vot­er-approved ini­tia­tives like I‑594 and I‑1639 in the courts in years past. The Attor­ney Gen­er­al not­ed today that his team has repeat­ed­ly pre­vailed over the gun lob­by and has a high degree of con­fi­dence in being able to do so again.

Congratulations to everyone who helped make these historic victories for gun safety possible!

As pro­gres­sives, we know that gun vio­lence is pre­ventable. The expe­ri­ence of oth­er advanced democ­ra­cies has demon­strat­ed that gun safe­ty laws work, sav­ing lives and pre­vent­ing com­mu­ni­ties from being ripped apart by sense­less tragedies. What’s more, we know that we aren’t alone in believ­ing this. Our research is proof that. Sup­port for gun safe­ty laws spans the ide­o­log­i­cal spec­trum. Many Repub­li­cans and most inde­pen­dents are unit­ed with near­ly all Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers in sup­port­ing laws like the three that Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee signed today.

Thank you to every per­son and orga­ni­za­tion that stepped up to lob­by for these bills. The let­ters you wrote, the calls you made, the tes­ti­mo­ny you offered, the orga­niz­ing you did… it all made a dif­fer­ence. By work­ing togeth­er, we’ve gone from being a state in which even many Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tors once refused to buck the gun lob­by to a state that is a nation­al leader on gun safe­ty. Hurrah!