Seattle gun shops ask court for speedy decision on gun tax lawsuit
Oct 29, 2015, 6:03 PM | Updated: Oct 30, 2015, 10:15 pm
(File, Associated Press)
(File, Associated Press)
Gun stores in Seattle are preparing for a legal fight, and are asking the King County Superior Court to come to a quick decision on the city’s gun tax.
“We are going for a summary judgment which means we are asking the court to decide, basically on the spot, that the law is illegal and should not be implemented,” said Sergey Solyanik.
Solyanik is owner of Precise Shooter, a gun store in Seattle. He has opposed Seattle’s new gun tax ever since it was proposed, and says he will be forced to move out of the city if it is implemented. The gun tax is slated to go into effect in January 2016.
Related: Seattle council passes gun tax
Solyanik is among a handful of gun shops, along with the NRA, who have sued the city over the tax. They will be in King County Superior Court on Dec. 18 to begin proceedings. With the summary judgment they have requested, they are asking the court to conclude sooner than later that Seattle’s gun tax runs afoul of state law.
“There could be three outcomes. The court could kill the law right there. That would be the happiest outcome,” Solyanik said. “Or the court would continue the proceedings, but gives us a temporary injunction so my store could operate while this goes on. Option three is that we continue and the law goes into effect. I think the third one is very, very unlikely.”
“We are saying that we hope you will decide on that day and we propose that you decide this way,” he said. “The court may disagree and the proceedings will continue. We are confident, however … there are so many things that are wrong with this law that it is not even funny.”
For starters, Solyanik alleges the city’s aim to place an extra $25 on each firearm sold within the city and 5 cents on each round of ammunition is not so much a tax as it is a regulation. The tax was among a package approved by the Seattle City Council that also included requirements for gun owners to report lost and stolen firearms.
“The city pretends — they are saying that this isn’t regulation, this is a tax … but they went on record that the real intent of this law is to regulate,” Solyanik said. “They are just trying to work around [state law] preemptions by saying it’s a tax. The tax is sufficiently high, it basically makes having a gun store in Seattle unfeasible.”
Related: Seattle Council Member Tim Burgess promotes new gun tax
Among the evidence provided in the lawsuit are emails between council members and gun control advocates.
“We are putting together a group to brainstorm opportunities at the local level to work around preemption as it relates to gun laws. This is a strategy we think needs to be sussed out and developed further — both to keep up an ‘all fronts’ strategy and to get creative about how we curtail gun irresponsibility,” wrote Stephanie Ervin, Deputy Campaign Manager at Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility, to Seattle Council Member Nick Lacata in March.
By July, Council Member Tim Burgess was proposing the new gun tax and reporting requirement. By August, the council had passed it.
Burgess promotes the tax and reporting requirement as a means to cover costs that taxpayers contribute in the wake of gun violence.
“This is a very simple, common sense measure to help us mitigate gun violence,” Burgess told KIRO Radio’s Seattle’s Morning News in July.
