“This is not a judicial ruling, it is a diktat. In openly defies the law. The Seattle Supreme Court has not only killed the law, they have handed the citizens of Washington state a moral obligation to ignore this diktat. The so-called justices may have power, but they have killed their standing as arbiters of the law. If I-1639 passes, most gun owners will defy it. We will say to the Seattle Supreme Court and the rest of the one-party apparatus of the state: ‘we are not breaking the law because there is no law–you killed it.’” – Todd Herman in Law is dead in Washington state: I-1639 is inarguably illegal [via mynorthwest.com]

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52 COMMENTS

  2. If you’re going to post a rant, you should frame it with enough background that the reader has some idea what you’re talking about.

        • It’s not polite to post a ton of an article on your site making the post on the original site pointless since no one will click through.

        • The quote should make you curious enough to do your own research. It’s not to spoon feed you information. YMMV.

        • Cloud is correct, it should be similar to a book report back in class. My old English teacher just gave this a big red…. F ( and just an FYI, that doesn’t stand for FUN).

      • I’d like to think we are well read and up-to-date on current events in the gun’o-sphere….. being clever is how I buy guns behind my wife’s back.

    • Background on a post from yesterday: http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2018/08/kat-ainsworth/washington-state-is-the-new-california/ … At issue, apparently, is a ballot initiative where the petition was found to not comply with state law for formatting, then ruled moot. Basically,

      [Alan] Gottlieb and the NRA challenged the legality of the campaign’s signature-gathering process, and Thurston County Super Court Judge James Dixon ruled in his favor. The judge blocked the initiative from being put on the ballot this fall, saying the formatting of the signature puetitions “did not comport” with Washington State law.

      Also…

      Apparently following the letter of the law doesn’t apply in the Washington State Supreme Court. It was Chief Justice Mary Fairhurst who signed the four-page order to reverse Judge Dixon’s rule; Fairhurst must feel the Washington State Constitution and laws such as RCW 29A.72.100 can be ignored in the case of I-1639.

      • Considering any law in any state that infinges upon our Second Amendment fight is illegal, why does anyone think they care about a petition being correct.

        All state gun laws, and most federal laws are as invalid as this petition.

  3. when law becomes tyranny, resistance becomes duty. in this and many other cases congress and the legal system have already become a law unto themselves and no longer preside over what is JUST and FAIR but rather what gives them more power

    • You’re correct, of course. But one has to wonder why we’ve not done this with any of the MANY “laws” that have been put on the books over the years?

      Not just regarding 2A, but those are obvious. Why not the resistance to the NFA, GCA and all such other unconstitutional and therefore void diktats??

      • probably because people have gotten too used to the IDEA of liberty while not understanding the substance of it in large part due to the success liberty can bring. To understand it again sadly they will need a good gut full of tyranny and strife so they relearn how futile life is without liberty. This is why right through history nations become great and then slide into oblivion. Most people want all the shiny new “toys” and dont want the hard slog of understanding the past and in particular the mistakes of the past so that they are not made again in the future.

        look at the last days of Rome. Look also at how heavily sports are promoted at the highest levels of the sports to get the “spectators” in. If it was not a version of bread and circuses it would be participation at the lower levels of sports that would be getting the promotion. BTW it is not just in America that this is going on. It is in every western country

  5. I of course knew exactly what he was talking about as soon as I read the headline, but I think the opening paragraph to the referenced opinion piece is a better summary:

    There is no law in Washington state. On Friday, the Seattle Supreme Court — formerly the Washington State Supreme Court –killed it. The so-called justices killed the law because they are left-wing activist, arrogant, lying hacks. They hate guns, they hate gun owners, solely due to those factors they unanimously approved Initiative I-1639. The so-called court openly defied the clear and simple language of Washington state law. The so-called judges killed the law.

  6. “Yes, yes, yes, it’s all so oh very serious, but what does this have to do with what Kim Kardashian is wearing or Taylor Swift’s new single?”, thought about 90% of voters.

    • And Jonathan – Houston wins the Intertubez today!

      That is a very large part of our troubles in our nation. People know more about popular “icons” than they do about History or current geo-political events.

      • But they still vote. That is the problem, and why we in this sad state are screwed. Had hoped getting this off the ballot would buy us more time, but we are going the CA route, and unless/until SCOTUS comes to our rescue, we’ll be there in no time short.

        Lived here my entire life, I know what it was like before the present time, I’m sure long-time CA residents feel the same way…I don’t see how I can leave, and I don’t see how ultimately that will matter. Population centers run the show, and as they go liberal, gun owners lose. I don’t see that trend stopping, it will just take longer in some states than it has on the left coast.

        Hate being negative, but leftism knows no boundaries, and I’ve watched WA and OR both fall. If a wall needs built, it needs to be one between the coastal states and the interior.

        • Yeah they still vote, and they have a name…Donkeycratics. There is a video where they interview these voters after they left the polling place. Not ONE could answer a single policy question, however, everyone of them knew about Sara Palin’s daughter, the price of her dresses, and other salacious but completely irrelevant gossip.

  7. I love Washington State and I despise the people who have decided it must become Kalifornia norte. I have no idea how to stop the spread of Kalicommunism other than war and frankly that is too terrible to imagine. I think at some point it will be inevitable though and I hope I have passed on at that point and won’t be here to see the demise of this great experiment called the USA.

    • “…I have no idea how to stop the spread of Kalicommunism other than war …”

      Hello dph, we are at war and have been for some time. The first “casualty of war” is always the truth (which we today call fake news). Always amazes me many on the right don’t get this.

      And how do you stop it? You fight, at the ballot box, on social media, a letter to your politician, by convincing a friend. Then you teach others to fight, and you never give up.

      They want you to feel they have won the culture wars, but understand that true American culture derives from the middle of the country, not the extremists on the ends.

      • School House: – Nope – Here in WA state it CANNOT be stopped at the ballot box. One geographically small area has enough votes to pass any law they desire. It has even been done when the opposition has won an election ( See Rossi vs Gregoire round #1). In that small geographic area there is a higher concentration of Billionaires than anywhere in the nation – and all of them are autocratic liberal megalomaniacs.

        It is not the votes that count, but who counts the votes.

    • DPH, I feel your pain. I am a lifelong Pacific NW resident – born and raised. In my lifetime Washington and Oregon have gone from a haven for hard-working Americans to a stinking cauldron of communism.

      I-1639 is the most blatant and outrageous example of totalitarian abuse of justice that could be imagined. The Supreme Court has literally declared the State Constitution and the law is of no matter. High state officials that have the power to enforce the law agree that the law is being violated, yet they allow the Initiative to move forward.

      I am not surprised in the least, however, I think I’m gonna puke.

      Orwell told us this was coming.

  9. Non compliance would require many levels of state and retail bisunesses, and medical officials (with the enhanced BG checks and mental health records.)to not participate with the unconstitutional law.
    Do you really think the sheriff, state FBI, etc. is going to say, oh well we don’t agree with the law so were not going to enforce it, NO. Maybe in Texas but here in WA I don’t think so, because GUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNZZZZZZ!
    There is already anarchy of the law (selective enforcement) eg. state pot laws, and illegal border crosser sanctuary city’s.

    • Yes, I’ve heard from folks that work for him that he is to say the least a “challenging” employer. I know nothing about the sister but I’m not surprised. The average person has no true concept of the level of wealth and power these people wield and sadly for some it leads to a sense of being a monarch instead of being the lucky sister of a man with a net worth of 20 billion dollars.

  11. A little background for those not in The Evergreen State:

    Washington has a citizen initiative right, were ballot measures, if supported by enough citizen signatures, can be put on the ballot for statewide vote. However noble and egalitarian the idea may have been originally, it has been taken over by very wealthy special interests who mislead the mainstream into signing on in support and then continue to mislead up to the election.

    A few years ago they rammed through a background check measure largely on the wallets of Bill and Melinda Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Ballmer, Michael Bloomberg and the like.

    This year the usual suspects are supporting a “citizen” (snicker) initiative that would put additional restrictions in place, including training and age requirements for AR purchases, secure storage laws, etc.

    The signature gatherers have you sign a form to show your support for the initiative. The measure in question is supposed to be on the form easily read with strike-throughs and highlights for changes and additions to existing law. They put the law with no annotations on the form in a font that was so small as to be unreadable. A lower court said that did not comport with state law and through out hundreds of thousands of signatures.

    The state Supreme Court said nope, it’s ok, even if the initiative campaign is violating state law no one has the right to challenge it until it is actually voted into law, THEN you can challenge it.

    Washington State, now that the political climate is pretty much controlled by Seattle/King County (filling up with transplants that are not from the northwest), with a handful of the richest men in the world living in the area dictating our future, is pretty much a lost cause unless in the coming years we get protections in place at a federal level. If we can get Kavanaugh rammed through before the midterms there’s a chance to stop the bleeding…maybe. A sad slide over the abyss for a state that has a long history of gun rights protection.

    • Thank you very much TheOtherDavid.

      You other guys are totally right, I remember reading about this every day on here. /sarc

    • The few with huge money are like the 4 in colorado, jared polis, stryker, etc. There were 4 uber liberals in CO who poured in a ton of money on specific liberal causes and they have had a disastrous effect. Both WA and CO are only mid ish sized states and have small media markets. CO is basically denver and colorado spring, WA is seattle and spokane. None of those are expensive media markets, so a few million from a handful of uber wealthy can have a huge effect. Look at what bloomberg did in NV with that ballot question in ’16, his $10 million goes a LOOOOOOOG way in a small state.

  12. In 2014 Washington State passed I-594. This is a universal background check for all gun transfers and aimed at private sales (non FFL) of guns.
    Two years later, the first, and only, arrest was made. Police were told by the suspect that he had privately sold a gun without a background check. The gun was later used in a murder. Police had to search to find a way to charge the suspect. The case still hasn’t gone to trail. The gun is missing. In fact, the suspect is missing.
    The gun control groups bleat that “50 felons” were stopped by I-594. That was out of 10,000 private sales. That’s an astonishing 0.02%! However, in the two years that followed, therehave been zero prosecutions. During the same period, the FFL businesses denied 3,948 applications.
    Private sales represent only 2% of all of the state’s gun transfers. Questions have since been raised about the numbers that were claimed in support of I-594. The infamous “40%” claim of private sales comes from a 1994 phone survey of 261 people. The results:
    “The survey found that 64.3 percent thought they got their gun from a licensed dealer, and the study’s authors assumed the remaining 35.7 percent did not. Somehow this was rounded up to 40 percent.”
    Clearly, I-594 was argued on questionable claims.
    In the last 4 years, nobody has been prosecuted under the law.

    http://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=9.41.113
    http://www.nwnewsnetwork.org/post/washington-murder-case-results-gun-charge-under-2014-background-check-law
    https://gunresponsibility.org/solution/initiative-594-background-checks/
    http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2017/01/foghorn/fbi-2-gun-sales-washington-person-person-not-40-claimed/
    https://bearingarms.com/bob-o/2014/11/10/arrest-will-comply-washingtons-594-protested-mass-felony-civil-disobedience/
    http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/09/robert-farago/estimated-40-gun-transfers-take-place-without-going-licensed-dealer-united-states-including-sales-online-gun-shows-true/
    https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/165476.pdf

  13. Not all of Washington feels this way. Of the 39 counties in Washington State, only three around the Seattle/Tacoma area are ruled by unhinged liberals. However the rest of the State does not have the population base to fight these crazies. The Cascade Mountain range splits the state from West to East. Eastern Washington is actually very nice place to live. There has been a lot of discussion about splitting the State, The Seattle area does not have the rest of the state’s best economic interest at heart. It’s getting closer to the time to move out of Washington to Idaho. In Eastern Washington is Spokane, which is about 10 miles from Post falls Idaho. Many large businesses have already moved from Spokane across the state line to Post Falls because of a much better business climate. It’s just getting worse as the law makers in Olympia (State capitol) just don’t care about Eastern Washington. The State is turning into another California.

    • As a Spokanite, I also know this. The gun grabbers liked to toot what an overwhelming success I-594 was.
      It wasn’t. It failed in the large majority of our state counties. It passed in Spokane County and the unhinged population rich west side that had recently suffered some high profile shootings.
      What you touched on, about the west vs east side of the state, it really pisses us off over here. It doesn’t matter what we vote for, whatever is popular on the west side, gets passed.
      The fact is, Spokane and surrounding areas are Petticoat Junction compared to the west side. We are nothing but a “blink and you’ll miss it” to them. We don’t matter.

  14. So for those who can’t be bothered to read, the issue of the law’s validity is purely procedural. The state supreme court is allowing the measure to go on the ballot despite proper procedure not being followed. By state law, a petition must have a full copy of the proposed legislation attached so people can read it before they sign. The areas circled in red are parts of the proposed law that differ from the version shown on the petition, either altered or ommitted. I absolutely agree with the writer’s opinion that proper procedure needs to be followed, lest the rule of law crumble, but only with about 2% the impotent rage he displays. I mean, seriously…have a beer and calm down, bub.

  15. So Todd Herman was expecting the rule of law and a sense of justice to emanate from a court? A court? How silly of him.

    If you want to know the truth about courts (hey, that sounds like a blog), look no further than the Supreme Court of West Virginia where ALL the justices are being impeached. Well, all of them except the two who resigned under fire, one of whom is under arrest.

    The court system in America is a joke, except that nobody’s laughing.

  16. Andrew Cuomo would have thought of this first but he’s too stupid and incapable of original thought.

  19. These ballots are direct democracy, best described as 2 foxes and a chicken deciding what’s for dinner. 51% gets you what you want, usually.

    Prop187 was overturned by the courts in .CA because it interfered with the plan to turn .ca into a socialist utopia like central and South America strive to be.

    We’re it not for the EC you know who would be president. This is why the Left wants majority rule votes and policies.

  20. Reminds me of how the socialists gained and kept power in Venezuela. Once they had 51% support to obtain power they simply ignored the law to retain power even when they lost their popular support.

  21. The remedies are; the ballot box, the jury box..and I just can’t seem to remember the third, but I know it’s important…anyone help me out here? Foxtrot-Kilo-Alpha. 30

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