Leg­is­la­tion that would oblig­ate gun man­u­fac­tur­ers and retail­ers to impose rea­son­able con­trols pre­vent­ing the diver­sion of firearms and relat­ed prod­ucts to straw pur­chasers, firearm traf­fick­ers, indi­vid­u­als who pose a risk to them­selves or oth­ers has the sup­port of near­ly three in five vot­ers, the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute’s most recent poll of the Wash­ing­ton State elec­torate has found.

59% of vot­ers sur­veyed last month for NPI by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling said they sup­port­ed enact­ing a new law to pro­tect pub­lic safe­ty by estab­lish­ing duties of firearm indus­try mem­bers. 36% said they were opposed and 4% were not sure.

Sen­ate Bill 5078, prime spon­sored by Sen­a­tor Jamie Ped­er­sen (D‑43rd Dis­trict: Seat­tle) would do just that. The bill, request­ed by Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son is await­ing a vote in the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. It was pulled from Rules on April 7th. It must see floor action before the April 12th oppo­site cham­ber cut-off in order to reach Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee’s desk.

Visu­al­iza­tion of NPI’s poll find­ing for the Firearm Indus­try Respon­si­bil­i­ty & Gun Vio­lence Vic­tims’ Access to Jus­tice Act (NPI graphic)

“Our state can and should hold irre­spon­si­ble gun deal­ers and man­u­fac­tur­ers civil­ly liable for the harms their prod­ucts cause,” Sen­a­tor Ped­er­sen said in a Decem­ber state­ment unveil­ing the leg­is­la­tion. “We have tak­en this approach for decades with auto­mo­biles, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, tox­ic build­ing mate­ri­als and oth­er dan­ger­ous prod­ucts, dra­mat­i­cal­ly improv­ing pub­lic safety.”

“All busi­ness­es should be held account­able for harm that they cause, both inten­tion­al harm — like flood­ing the mar­ket with more firearms that can be rea­son­ably sold by licensed deal­ers — or unin­ten­tion­al harm caused by irre­spon­si­ble busi­ness prac­tices,” Rep­re­sen­ta­tive David Hack­ney said. (Hack­ney, D‑11th Dis­trict / Seat­tle and South King Coun­ty, is the spon­sor of the House com­pan­ion bill).

SB 5078 is the third major gun safe­ty bill that our research has found pub­lic sup­port for this ses­sion. We pre­vi­ous­ly found that sup­port for an assault weapons ban (SHB 1240) had increased slight­ly and that vot­ers love Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Liz Berry and Sen­a­tor Marko Liias’ per­mit-to-pur­chase pro­pos­al, HB 1143.

SHB 1240 and HB 1143 have returned to the House for con­cur­rence votes and are now safe from the April 12th cut-off. But SB 5078 has­n’t cleared the bar yet: it’s up against the cut-off clock. House lead­er­ship knows that it’s is impor­tant and we are hope­ful that it will be brought for­ward for a vote before Wednes­day at 5 PM.

Here is the ques­tion we asked and the respons­es we received:

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%

Our sur­vey of 874 like­ly 2024 Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers was in the field from Tues­day, March 7th through Wednes­day, March 8th, 2023.

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.

As sum­ma­rized by non­par­ti­san staff in the House, SB 5078 would:

• Pro­hib­it firearm indus­try mem­bers from know­ing­ly cre­at­ing, main­tain­ing, or con­tribut­ing to a pub­lic nui­sance; and from design­ing, sell­ing, and mar­ket­ing firearm indus­try prod­ucts that pro­mote con­ver­sion of legal prod­ucts into ille­gal prod­ucts, or which tar­get minors or indi­vid­u­als pro­hib­it­ed from pur­chas­ing or pos­sess­ing firearms.
• Require firearm indus­try mem­bers to estab­lish, imple­ment, and enforce rea­son­able con­trols to pre­vent sale and dis­tri­b­u­tion to cer­tain indi­vid­u­als, pre­vent loss and theft of firearm indus­try prod­ucts, and ensure com­pli­ance with state and fed­er­al law; and to take rea­son­able pre­cau­tions to pre­vent sale or dis­tri­b­u­tion of firearm indus­try prod­ucts to dis­trib­u­tors and retail­ers that have failed to estab­lish and imple­ment rea­son­able controls.
• Estab­lish that vio­la­tions con­sti­tute a pub­lic nui­sance and are per se action­able under the Con­sumer Pro­tec­tion Act.
• Autho­rize the Attor­ney Gen­er­al to inves­ti­gate sus­pect­ed vio­la­tions and bring enforce­ment actions against firearm indus­try members.

With the excep­tion of East­ern and Cen­tral Wash­ing­ton, majori­ties in all regions of Wash­ing­ton State are sup­port­ive of the Firearm Indus­try Respon­si­bil­i­ty & Gun Vio­lence Vic­tims’ Access to Jus­tice Act. Vot­ers east of the Cas­cades are split, with 54% opposed and 42% sup­port­ive. In South­west Wash­ing­ton and the Olympic Penin­su­la, the state’s oth­er pre­dom­i­nant­ly rur­al region, 55% of vot­ers are sup­port­ive and 37% are opposed. In Puget Sound (King Coun­ty, North Puget Sound, South Sound), total sup­port aver­ages 63% across the three regions.

The split is espe­cial­ly pro­nounced in East­ern Wash­ing­ton. With­in the 5th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict — Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers’ dis­trict, which includes Spokane — there was almost an even split, with 47% vot­ers sup­port­ive and 49% opposed.

East­ern and Cen­tral Wash­ing­ton are, polit­i­cal­ly speak­ing, the most right wing region in the state. For any gun safe­ty pro­pos­al to have the sup­port of over two in five vot­ers liv­ing in that part of Wash­ing­ton is significant.

This one does­n’t have major­i­ty sup­port there in this poll, but it’s pret­ty close to hav­ing major­i­ty sup­port, espe­cial­ly in East­ern Washington.

And statewide, there’s clear­ly a strong major­i­ty for this bill. About half of the elec­torate is strong­ly sup­port­ive. That’s a deep reser­voir of enthusiasm.

In the his­to­ry of our research polling, we’ve always found a major­i­ty sup­port­ive of every gun safe­ty idea that we have test­ed. Extreme risk pro­tec­tion orders, rais­ing the age to buy a firearm, ban­ning high capac­i­ty mag­a­zines, pro­hibit­ing guns from being car­ried at elec­tion sites or local gov­ern­ment meet­ings… these and oth­er gun safe­ty laws have con­sis­tent­ly been pop­u­lar. Now, the the Firearm Indus­try Respon­si­bil­i­ty & Gun Vio­lence Vic­tims’ Access to Jus­tice Act is join­ing them.

We urge the House to act on this leg­is­la­tion with­in the next fifty hours.