Note: As I wrote this in 2021, I realized that my memory of when this all took place was badly out of order. I didn’t think I-1639 was even proposed as an initiative until after I took my first Appleseed, and I completely forgot its connection to the Stoneman Douglas High School Shooting. I had to double-check my facts and timeline for this one a few times.

Gun politics has been driven by fear as long as I’ve been paying attention to it. Take a minute to think about it - you probably know all the kinds of fear that get trumped up whenever gun politics comes up. Fear of totalitarian government killing its people or fear of armed extremists kidnapping government officials; fear of home invasions or fear of people brandishing guns in public; fear for yourself and your family, or fear for yourself and your family.

Nothing quite ratchets up fear like a school shooting. Everyone has gone to school at some point, and so has everyone they know and love. It’s very easy to imagine ourselves or loved ones trapped in a school with someone intent on doing harm. We get scared. We call our friends and family and make sure they’re okay. And then we get mad.

We want to think about schools as safe places, and we all want to do everything we can to make that happen. If it weren’t for those other people we could just fix this and it would never happen again. They clearly don’t care about the safety of our children the way we do. Someone came in and hurt children that could have been our children, and it was probably one of them.

You probably recognize this script - maybe you’re even in it. You probably also remember that it lasts maybe a month until you don’t have to pay attention to it anymore. ¹

In 2018 this script got run after the Stoneman Douglas High School Shooting. You likely remember the details, but here’s the “important” points for the script:

• The killer was reported to the police and the FBI multiple times for threatening comments made before the shooting.
• The killer legally obtained the AR-15 used in the shooting, passing the required background check.
• There was an armed police officer on the scene when the shooting started who did not at any point intervene to stop the killer.

This shooting resulted in almost no Federal action. President Trump banned bump stocks via executive order, though the draft for that order had probably been sitting on his desk for a while.² But in the absence of Federal action all that fear turned into protests or conspiracy theories.

Those protests clearly had an impact in Washington, even if they didn’t have much impact on the rest of the country.³ The proposed 2018 Democratic Platform in my district added an entire section on “Gun Reform” covering everything from implementing Universal Background Checks ⁴ to requiring yearly training, licensure, and insurance in order to own a gun. I joined their 2018 caucus to discuss many of these planks with them to offer the perspective of a Democrat familiar with guns and gun laws - only to find out it was too late to make any real change beyond removing an entire plank. The time for nuance had passed.

This was also the year the Initiative 1639 was proposed. Filed May 2, 2018, I-1639 had broad effect on gun laws in Washington. Among other changes, this initiative:

1. Defined a new legal term of art: semi-automatic assault rifle. ⁵
2. Banned the sale of ‘semi-automatic assault rifles’ to those under 21 years old
3. Required proof of completion of an approved training course before purchasing a ‘semi-automatic assault rifle’
4. Required the Washington State Patrol to perform a background check for the purchase of a ‘semi-automatic assault rifle’ in addition to the standard NICS check run on the sale of any other class of firearm in the state.
5. Required collection of a fee of up to $25 to apply to purchase a ‘semi-automatic assault rifle’
6. Required the waiver of health data confidentiality related to mental health in perpetuity to purchase a ‘semi-automatic assault rifle’
7. Required the Washington Department of Licensing to maintain a record of all applications to purchase a ‘semi-automatic assault rifle’
8. Removed the CPL-holder exception to the 10-day waiting period for pistols
9. Created a new felony-level penalty for leaving a firearm unsecured, if that firearm was then used in a crime.

There are definitely some good ideas here, but the way the got bundled into a Pass/Reject initiative left no room for nuance. You were either pro-gun (NO on I-1639) or anti-gun (YES on I-1639). And while this initiative passed with a clear majority I don’t think that means that the majority of people in Washington are anti-gun - I think it means they thought there were more good ideas here than bad ideas.

Here’s the ideas I think I-1639 stood for in the minds of those who voted for it:

• The government has a role in ensuring only law-abiding, mentally competent people own guns (Effects 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8)
• Young people are too irresponsible to buy certain guns (Effects 1 and 2)
• People with no gun training are irresponsible gun owners (Effect 3)
• People should lock up their guns (Effect 9)

I think these are reasonable ideas! If you put these 4 bullet points in front of me in a survey I would probably say I support all of these to varying degrees. Does that make me unambiguously anti-gun?

Here’s the ideas I think I-1639 stood for in the minds of those who voted against it:

• Some legal adults will be barred from purchasing certain firearms even if they are responsible gun owners (Effects 1 and 2)
• The government is going to require you to sit through a lecture on why guns are bad before you buy one (Effect 3)
• The government is going to build a registry of people who own guns (Effects 4, 5, and 7)
• The government is going to monitor your mental health records (Effect 6)
• Even if you are a vetted CPL holder you can’t be trusted with taking possession of a firearm the same day you buy it (Effect 8)
• If someone steals your gun and you fail to report it quickly enough, you could be found guilty of a felony (Effect 9)

I think all of these are bad ideas! If you put these 6 bullet points in front of me in a survey I would probably say I’m against all of these to varying degrees. Does that make me unambiguously pro-gun?

There are clearly valid concerns that I-1639 addressed, and there are clearly valid reasons to oppose it. It’s possible that if a bill like this had worked its way through a functional legislature there could have been some real compromise here. As an initiative I think it furthered division rather than mutual understanding.

On reflection, I think this initiative ended up causing some of the problems that ‘pro-gun people’ were worried about and didn’t deliver on all the benefits that ‘anti-gun people’ wanted. On review, in 2021:

• There are still ways for those under 21 to legally obtain ‘semi-automatic assault rifles’ - but it’s not easy.
• The training course required by law is laughably simple and imparts no gun safety knowledge that isn’t already in the gun’s manual when you buy it.
• The Washington State Patrol check requires that the state check databases that are already required to report to NICS, so this didn’t do much to meaningfully enhance the number of people blocked from purchasing a firearm in WA.
• The Washington Department of Licensing is maintaining a registry of everyone in the state who owns a pistol or ‘semi-automatic assault rifle’
• The ‘mental health data confidentiality waiver’ has had a chilling effect on both a) people purchasing new guns and b) people who already own guns seeking out mental health care.⁶
• Removing the CPL waiver for the waiting period was at risk of breaking gun dealers’ ability to perform background checks on CPL holders without a further legislative fix.⁷

Notes

¹ The Stoneman Douglas kids did a better job treating this as an ongoing problem than most people do. They understand that gun violence is a problem we could work to solve every single day instead of on the few days a year following a particularly heinous shooting. Many of them are still at it. I respect them a lot for that even though I disagree with the specific solutions they tend to support.

² The 2017 Las Vegas Shooting had started a conversation about banning bump stocks that was already underway. Bump stocks were otherwise unrelated to this event.

³ March for Our Lives hasn’t been particularly successful in getting legislation passed.

⁴ Already law in Washington at this point, but still not required at the Federal level.

⁵ Any semi-automatic rifle that is not an antique qualifies for this definition.

⁶ Go search the WA_Guns subreddit for “1639” and you’ll find stories of people who are hesitant to purchase new firearms or hesitant to seek mental health care.

⁷ Washington opted to act as a partial POC state, which means the NICS check for pistol transfers is conducted by the state, and the NICS check for long gun transfers is conducted by the dealer. But by Federal law, the dealer is supposed to run a background check on a CPL holder before delivering a firearm to them. The FBI performed ‘courtesy checks’ for dealers for a few years but opted to stop doing them on July 1st, 2019 (the same day this part of the initiative took effect). Dealers had no guidance from the FBI or the state on how to resolve this.