How I-1639 is already affecting Washington gun sellers
Jul 2, 2019, 1:20 PM | Updated: 2:03 pm
Lynnwood gun shop owner Tiffany Teasdale poses for a photo with a semi-automatic rifle in Lynnwood, Wash. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
As July 1 came and went, Washington state’s stringent new gun restrictions laid out by I-1639 officially took effect. For Lynnwood Gun and many others, customers are now set to see delays on purchasing firearms that could extend weeks.
Lynnwood Gun store sees spike in sales ahead of I-1639
“We have a lot of people that were getting really upset by the new changes,” Lynnwood Gun owner Tiffany Teasdale told KTTH’s Jason Rantz.
Before I-1639 took effect, customers could come into the store and walk out with a gun the day-of, requiring only a standard FBI online background check.
Starting July 1, the process got a good deal more complicated.
“People come in, and they bring in a copy of their class certification that they completed,” said Teasdale. “We’ll take a copy of that, and keep it with your 4473 background check document. We’ll have you complete the federal document, and then we’ll do a state form that is for the new SAR rifles. Those will actually be sent off to the local police department. They have 10 business days under the current RCW. If they decide to put a delay status on it so that they need more time to do a background check, it’s another 30 calendar days.”
Teasdale estimates that in a worst case scenario, it could take upwards of 44 days before a background check gets sent off and completed.
Lynnwood Gun owner thinks she already found loophole in I-1639
All told, the burden of I-1639 on gun sellers includes more paperwork, added administrative costs, and figuring out where to house more firearms for longer periods of time as background checks process. For Teasdale, that fails to tackle the real issues at play when it comes to gun violence.
“We have a broken system, whether it’s not charging criminals accordingly, not making parents be liable for their children, or not making sure that kids have a good moral background,” she noted.
Teasdale expects business moving forward to “slow down for a little bit” as a result of the legislation.
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