Second Amendment advocate fires back against controversial gun bill: ‘This is going to cost lives in the long run’

A bill that would require prospective gun buyers to first need a five-year permit from the Washington State Patrol (WSP) passed the Senate Law & Justice Committee Thursday.

The bill, House Bill 1163, would require applicants to complete a certified firearms safety training program within the past five years in order to get the permit, alongside the existing required background checks. The bill has exclusions for police officers and active military servicemembers.

The bill passed on a party-line vote with zero Republican support. According to The Washington State Standard, one Republican representative claimed this “may be the worst bad bill we’ve seen so far this session.”

“So this bill will save lives,” John Curley said on “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio, mirroring Attorney General Nick Brown’s claims.

“Incorrect,” William Kirk, president of Washington Gun Law and one of the nation’s leading Second Amendment advocates, retorted. “(Brown) said (there are) 935 homicides in the state of Washington, a number which, by the way, has increased over the years as we passed assault weapon bans and magazine bans and closing gun shell loopholes, all of that. If you take suicides out of it, and then you take away all of the crimes that are committed by individuals who are unlawfully possessing the firearm at the time the crime is committed, I can assure you that number is going to be more like around 35 (homicides), maybe 25, because that is the identifiable problem when it comes to what they want to call gun violence. Are there deaths caused by guns? Absolutely. Unfortunately, a tremendous amount of them are suicides, and that is clearly an issue rooted in mental health.”

Kirk claimed that approximately 75% of the homicides committed in the state are suicides.

“Washington state already has a 10-day waiting period. You could walk into a gun store right now, clear the background check, they’d be like, ‘Great, we’ll see in 10 days,'” Kirk said. “This clearly could add 30, 40, 60 days to that, which, for most people, that’s just a chronological inconvenience, but for a segment of the population, oftentimes abused and battered women who are in terrible situations, the ability or inability to defend themselves during that critical period of time is the difference between life and death. This is not going to save lives. It’s going to cost lives in the long run.”

Listen to the full conversation here:

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