Not an I-594 consideration

Yesterday I received an email from someone concerned about leaving someone alone in the car with a gun. Could that be construed as requiring a background check?

I’m not a lawyer but I’m pretty sure the answer is no. “Transfer” is defined (Sec 2. (25)) as:

“Transfer” means the intended delivery of a firearm to another person without consideration of payment or promise of payment including, but not limited to, gifts and loans.

So I think leaving someone alone in the car with a gun should be exempt.

Also, on Facebook this morning Joe Waldron (former(?) CCRKBA lobbyist) commented in regards to the flare and nail guns post:

The definition of “firearm” in I-594 is the same definition that has been law in Washington since 1994. They didn’t come after your flare and nail guns (or projectile fireworks) then and they’re not going to come after them now. Let’s not get distracted.

Let’s not jump the shark too many times, okay?

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8 thoughts on “Not an I-594 consideration

  1. Don’t worry about bad laws because they’re enforced selectively? Pull the other leg. If the law has a bad definition of firearm which includes for example muzzleloaders, then it’s only a matter of time until some prosecuter uses the law as written to prosecute an otherwise innocent person or harass a vendor.

  2. Waldron is a lobbyist swimming in the sea of problems we brought him in the last election. He has to choose which crisis he’s going to attack first, he’s focused not “co-opted”.

    • Fundamental difference. The drugs are not legal to possess, and the guns are. The drug definition won’t apply. “Constructive possession” is a shaky concept, anyway. It has to be decided on a case by case basis.

  3. Waldron may be right, but doesn’t that just expose a flaw in the RCW that’s been there all along? By its definitions flare and nail guns absolutely are covered.

  4. Maybe Joe Waldron should have read the part of I-594 Section 2:

    RCW 9.41.010 and 201 3 c 183 s 2 are each amended to read as follows:
    (9) “Firearm” means a weapon or device from which a projectile or
    projectiles may be fired by an explosive such as gunpowder.
    (10) “Gun” has the same meaning as firearm.

    The fact that the 1994 definition of “firearm” will be rewritten by I-594 seems lost on Mr. Waldon. The fact that “nail gun” now means “nail firearm” and “flare gun” now means “flare firearm” doesn’t seem up for debate.

  5. While the definition for firearm hasn’t changed, several new definitions impact it. Gun was added (already mentioned above). Person is now also defined which includes stores. There is now also the requirement to have background checks on ALL firearms (eg “guns”). This isn’t the first time this has happened. In 2000 voters approved I-713 to outlaw gripping traps. The TV was filled with bloody stumps left by furry creatures who had gnawed off their legs to gree themselves from the jaws of a trappers string. Rat and mouse traps were “specifically exempted” but the initiative makers forgot to add mole traps. Those are still illegal to this day in Washington State: http://www.atg.wa.gov/AGOOpinions/opinion.aspx?id=7974

    Unless someone can post a specific exemption that is now codified as law at the State or Federal level exempting nail guns and flare guns….they are in and covered.

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