Klickitat County Sheriff: Ignoring 1639 doesn’t set bad precedent

Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer enforces the law for a living — except the laws that he finds to be unconstitutional.

Like Republic Police Chief Loren Culp, Sheriff Songer announced publicly that he will direct Klickitat County deputies not to go after people violating I-1639, the initiative that became law in November’s election, out of belief that the law violates the state Constitution.

The new law enacts some of the strictest gun control measures in the nation, including raising the age to purchase semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21; establishing background checks, mandatory training, and waiting periods before the purchase of semi-automatic rifles; and mandating that gun owners lock their firearms in a safe, with the consequence that it is a felony if a gun owner’s firearm that is not properly locked away is stolen and used in the commission of a crime.

RELATED: Lt. Col. Oliver North calls I-1639 ‘nuts’ 

“I believe I-1639 violates gun owners’ rights under the Washington state Constitution and the United States Constitution,” said Songer, who has 48 years of experience in law enforcement.

KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson agreed that I-1639 is unconstitutional, but worried that it could set a dangerous precedent when an elected official decides which laws to enforce, and which to ignore.

“As a constitutional sheriff under the Washington Constitution, not only is it my job …  to throw bad guys in jail, but it’s also to ensure the safety of our community, the people we serve,” Songer answered. “My only boss is the citizens of Klickitat County.”

This means that he has the “sworn duty to step in” and intervene if he believes that “something is unsafe or their rights are being violated.”

If 1639 is repealed by the courts in a few years, then the time and money spent convicting and jailing people for gun offenses under this law is pointless, he said.

“The courts will decide it, but in the meantime, I’m not going to go out there and arrest people violating 1639, seize their guns, get them booked into jail … and they’ve spent thousands of dollars,” he said.

It appears that the Klickitat County Sheriff’s Department will be able to be firm in its stance. Former state Attorney General Rob McKenna told MyNorthwest in November that, “there’s no practical way you can force a local [law enforcement agency] to enforce the law.”

Songer called the part of the law that would charge a gun owner with a crime when his or her improperly-stored gun is stolen “flat B.S.”

“I-1639 will do nothing toward keeping our community safe,” he said. “What it will do is turn honest gun owners into criminals, and create a black market for firearms.”

He also pointed out the irony of the age requirement.

“We send our young people over to Iraq and Afghanistan, throw a weapon in their hands to defend our country,” he said. “But they come back, they’re 20 years old, and they want to buy a semi-automatic weapon for self-protection or hunting or target practice, and they can’t buy it. They served our country. It makes no sense.”

The sheriff is proudly pro-Second Amendment, and lives his life by a powerful motto: “God, guns, and guts are what made America free.”