One of the most impor­tant gun safe­ty bills of the 2023 Wash­ing­ton State leg­isla­tive ses­sion is head­ed to Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee’s desk.

SB 5078, the Firearm Indus­try Respon­si­bil­i­ty & Gun Vio­lence Vic­tims’ Access to Jus­tice Act, received a con­cur­rence vote today in the Sen­ate. That means the Sen­ate agreed with the changes that the House made to the bill, com­plet­ing its jour­ney through the bicam­er­al leg­isla­tive process.

The bill will soon be pre­sent­ed to Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee, who request­ed it along with Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son and plans to sign it into law.

Prime spon­sored by Sen­a­tor Jamie Ped­er­sen (D‑43rd Dis­trict: Seat­tle), the bill:

• 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.

NPI’s research shows that near­ly three-fifths of like­ly 2024 Wash­ing­ton vot­ers sup­port the leg­is­la­tion, with near­ly half of the total strong­ly sup­port­ive.

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

“In 2005, Con­gress took unprece­dent­ed action to give gun man­u­fac­tur­ers blan­ket immu­ni­ty for gun vio­lence per­pe­trat­ed as a direct result of their mar­ket­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion of firearms,” Fer­gu­son said.

“Today the Leg­is­la­ture took an impor­tant step to right that wrong and pro­tect Wash­ing­to­ni­ans from gun vio­lence by ensur­ing that the gun indus­try faces real account­abil­i­ty when its irre­spon­si­ble con­duct harms our communities.”

“I’m proud that this year we’ve increased account­abil­i­ty among man­u­fac­tur­ers and deal­ers,” Inslee said. “These busi­ness enti­ties play a cru­cial role in keep­ing our com­mu­ni­ties safe from gun vio­lence. Thank you to AG Fer­gu­son, the leg­is­la­tors and com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions who helped pass this bill.”

“Busi­ness­es that pro­duce and sell dan­ger­ous prod­ucts have a duty to keep com­mu­ni­ties safe,” Ped­er­sen said.

“SB 5078 will require the firearms indus­try to do its part to reduce and pre­vent gun vio­lence by tight­en­ing up their com­pli­ance with our state laws.”

The roll call to con­cur in the Sen­ate was as follows:

Roll Call
SB 5078
Firearm indus­try duties
Final Pas­sage as Amend­ed by the House
4/14/2023

Yeas: 26; Nays: 20; Excused: 3

Vot­ing Yea: Sen­a­tors Bil­lig, Cleve­land, Dhin­gra, Frame, Hasegawa, Hunt, Kauff­man, Keis­er, Kud­er­er, Liias, Lovelett, Lovick, 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, Mul­let, Pad­den, Rivers, Schoesler, Short, Tor­res, Van De Wege, Wag­oner, War­nick, Wil­son (Lyn­da)

Excused: Sen­a­tors Con­way, Muz­za­ll, Wil­son (Jeff)

Two Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tors vot­ed no: Mark Mul­let and Kevin Van De Wege.

Anoth­er Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tor, Steve Con­way, was excused.

The rest of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus vot­ed yea. All Repub­li­can sen­a­tors vot­ed no except for Ron Muz­za­ll and Jeff Wil­son, who were excused.

NPI con­grat­u­lates and thanks the Leg­is­la­ture for get­ting this bill passed. It’s anoth­er impor­tant step for­ward for gun safe­ty that will ben­e­fit our state.