Following the passage of a range of new gun control laws in Washington State, Attorney General Bob Ferguson is using powers included in the new laws to wage a wide-ranging campaign of harassment, threats, and intimidation. The targets so far include gun rights organizations and gun businesses in Washington as well as distributors doing business with Washington State retailers.
The Washington 2023 Legislative Action Group has issues this statement . . .
Is the State of Washington, now at war with the lawful firearms industry?
As crime in the State of Washington continues to spiral out of control, and the state legislature fails to take effective action towards public safety, new revelations about the state’s extreme actions against the lawful firearms industry are coming to light.
The State is using the auspices of their Consumer Protection Act, contained within 2022’s Large Capacity Magazine Ban (SB5078) to cast a breathtakingly wide net over the lawful firearms distribution industry.
Most recently, the state publicly pursued numerous retailers for violating the magazine ban. The consumer protection dragnet targeted, Federal Way Discount Guns and has subsequently assessed a $19.5 million fine for violations. The state is concurrently defending the b an in two federal lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the magazine ban (Brumback v. Ferguson and Sullivan v. Ferguson), but the CPA investigation continues to move full steam ahead.
Now we are learning that the Attorney General’s office is widening the scope of their investigation, not based on a documented, willful violation by a retailer, but rather scooping up all records and communications from wholesalers nationwide.
The latest target, Davidson’s, Inc, is an Arizona-based wholesaler that supplies retailers nationwide. The state, through its Consumer Investigative Demand (CID), has asked Davidson’s to supply all invoices, transfers, and communications of all matters with Washington-based firearms retailers going back to January 1, 2022. That’s is six months before the ban took effect and three months before the ban was even passed as law.
As crime in the State of Washington continues to spiral out of control, and the state legislature fails to take effective action towards public safety, new revelations about the state’s extreme actions against the lawful firearms industry are coming to light.
The State is using the auspices of their Consumer Protection Act, contained within 2022’s Large Capacity Magazine Ban (SB5078) to cast a breathtakingly wide net over the lawful firearms distribution industry.
Most recently, the state publicly pursued numerous retailers for violating the magazine ban. The consumer protection dragnet targeted, Federal Way Discount Guns and has subsequently assessed a $19.5 million fine for violations. The state is concurrently defending the b an in two federal lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the magazine ban (Brumback v. Ferguson and Sullivan v. Ferguson), but the CPA investigation continues to move full steam ahead.
Now we are learning that the Attorney General’s office is widening the scope of their investigation, not based on a documented, willful violation by a retailer, but rather scooping up all records and communications from wholesalers nationwide.
The latest target, Davidson’s, Inc, is an Arizona-based wholesaler that supplies retailers nationwide. The state, through its Consumer Investigative Demand (CID), has asked Davidson’s to supply all invoices, transfers, and communications of all matters with Washington-based firearms retailers going back to January 1, 2022. That’s is six months before the ban took effect and three months before the ban was even passed as law.
Davidson’s has field a lawsuit in Thurston County District court asking for injunctive relief, based on the “over board, burdensome and oppressive” demand. It’s only a matter of time before we see the same demands made to other national wholesalers, if they haven’t already been filed.
The state has lost track its true mission…improved public safety. It seeks instead to vilify, bankrupt, and destroy the shooting sports. State and local prosecutors, are forgiving criminal behavior, failing to prosecute or take effective action at reducing criminal firearm usage. They stoke the fires of public fear by targeting the industry, but abjectly fail to pursue prosecution of the use of firearms in the commission of a crime. They use public funds to attack the civil rights of lawful citizens and companies, and to defend these unconstitutional laws.
The state has lost track its true mission…improved public safety. It seeks instead to vilify, bankrupt, and destroy the shooting sports. State and local prosecutors, are forgiving criminal behavior, failing to prosecute or take effective action at reducing criminal firearm usage. They stoke the fires of public fear by targeting the industry, but abjectly fail to pursue prosecution of the use of firearms in the commission of a crime. They use public funds to attack the civil rights of lawful citizens and companies, and to defend these unconstitutional laws.
With the passage of HB1240 (semi-automatic ban) the same Consumer Protection Act powers are added to the AG’s office. The passage of Senate Bill 5078 (2023 – Industry liability law) extends the AG’s office reach even further, encapsulating the entire firearms industry in Washington and nationwide in a similar scheme.
Now the AG’s office can pursue any firearms-related company nationwide as a public nuisance, assessing fines based on the AG’s perception of marketing practices, business practices, illegal usage and other less quantitative practices in the industry.
The AG’s office also quietly received another $2.3 million for hiring additional investigators to specifically target the firearms industry, under this new law. Its noteworthy that in January, 2023 a New Jersey federal Judge, a Biden appointee, found that the same law in New Jersey was a direct violation of the Protection in Lawful Commerce in Arm Act (PLCAA), federal law protecting the industry from meritless frivolous lawsuits. The PLCAA does not protect the industry from criminal or civil liability if they break the law or manufacture a faulty product, but from being sued for the illegal or irresponsible use of a lawful product.
Judge Zahid Quraishi presiding in that case found that the law was not only illegal, but represented numerous constitutional issues on First, Second and Fourth Amendments grounds. The state legislature still passed the law, even with full knowledge that it’s been found to be illegal under federal law.
On Thursday, May 4th, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), filed a lawsuit against the AG’s office, for eight Consumer Investigative Demands served by the State of Washington. SAF has provided 75,000 pages of documents, but is still being asked for more.
We are living in the shadow of Tom Cruise’s Minority Report, the pre-cogs are predicting behaviors through unconstitutional search methods that violate the Revised Code of Washington, the state constitution and the US Constitution, rather than observing and prosecuting criminal behavior.
While many elected officials in Washington State may strongly disagree with firearms on principal and in practice, we are still a nation with constitutional protections. We should not let the headlines be abused for garnering political traction, fundraising, or erasing a lawful and important industry from our great state. We should not stand by while the unlimited financial resources — your tax dollars — of the state are applied to target an industry with a long and rich tradition, from the birth and preservation of our nation, to the civil rights of each Washington citizen.
In the meantime, criminals will carry on. Drugs will kill more citizens every day. Police will still be hamstrung. The state has lost sight of its public safety mission, blinded by its own virtue signals, and it will hurt ALL of us.
All of this is classic communist revolutionary behavior. Harass, vilify and imprison the law-abiding, and excuse the criminal element. This creates chaos; the population eventually becomes desperate enough to demand action from the government, and the communists swoop in and take total power.
The commies are making their move at the state level: Washington, California, Illinois, New York, Minnesota. At the Federal level they are attacking the legitimacy of the Supreme Court and threatening the Constitutional order of the Legislative branch, all the while a lawless Executive ignores federal statutes.
The Second is more important than ever.
I think it’s obvious now (if it wasn’t already) that the Dems in the country are trying very hard to start a shooting war. And they may very well get it.
Wonder if the marxist dems ever heard the saying, ” be careful what you wish for ” ?
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they need to get it. nothing else will stop them. They are engaging in a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce us under absolute Despotism. If we don’t start taking final action we will find ourselves disarmed and hauled off in cattle cars to camps.
Washington laws have to standing or requirements to be obeyed by a business in another state. This fool is grasping at straws.
Lets hope for the business’s sake that the relevant Federal and Circuit court judges agree……….9th was it?
Yep, the 9th Circus, meaning fat chance hippie of getting any meaningful relief without a protracted fight.
Perhaps the do it for me courtroom drama queens should get off their behinds and Define Gun Control according to its Roots in Racism and Genocide? Failure to do so clearly provides a cozy seat in the courtroom for Gun Control and the usual Hot Seat for The Second Amendment.
Gun Control zealots will march, slander and libel to get their way while Gun Owners act like silly puppy dogs and chase whatever Gun Control says. On the other hand WHEN was the last time you’ve seen a Gun Control Rat chase a damned thing? Past time to bombard them with The History Confirmed Truth About Gun Control…Don’t ya think?
Irrelevant and ineffective when the person pushing it honestly couldn’t be bothered to care. Define away nothing but losing power or money will arrest the push.
state…If your reply was to me all it amounted to was gibberish. I mean if you do not have the balls to Define Gun Control by its History just say so.
Aww you think going after balls means anything how cute. Deb your position while true is ineffective and a waste of effort. If you don’t believe me from memory try to answer two questions: How many people died in the Holocaust and how many people died in the Holodomor. If you can answer one but not the other from memory (or even know what the second is) you can figure out why fighting the propaganda war without owning the message to begin with is a less than productive exercise of running uphill. Again you are not wrong but you are wasting effort better spent bringing in new shooters and letting them figure out the truth of the situation when they are ready/able to. Or do you lack the balls to admit that there is more to history than you bother to study and explore.
Deb you can define it all you want but if the infringer doesn’t care about racism then it means nothing. and they don’t care.
they want power and while we still have guns they don’t have total control.
so stop arguing with the choir , maybe your the one singing out of key
tired I see you grasp the mindset and implications of the grabbers quite solidly.
I think it’s almost too late for anything except the smell of gunpowder.
RE: state…”How many people died in the Holocaust and how many people died in the Holodomor.”
Not enough for you and your like minded pals to man up and Define an Agenda Rooted in Racism and Genocide…You need to debunk the History of Gun Control before you think you have a podium to question me about a damned thing.
I see barking clowns exactly like you say democRats play the race card. Well who the heck do you think kept their mouths shut and allowed democRats to rewrite history and turn the table on The Party of Lincoln?…Since you by all accounts are not man enough to answer truthfully I’ll answer for you…Clowns like you rolled over and played dead for democRats the same way you roll over and fail to Define Gun Control…The results of you and your ilk’s failure to Define Gun Control are clear as day and still your head is stuck in your behind.
Since you are a zipped lipped courtroom drama queen…Historical Evidence shows Gun Control should have been abolished like its sidekick Slavery. Yes or No?
While you and your ilk were beating the same old drum during Uvalde my drum made it to the floor of congress and by all accounts it helped turned the tide…
https://youtu.be/WlItbl9SOAg
Deb you just clearly demonstrated why Stalin’s tragedy vs statistic comparison matters good job. Race doesn’t matter class doesn’t matter and barking about history will not matter only taking the fight to them as Bruen, getting honest judges appointed, electing people unwilling to cede our rights, and flooding the market and population with so many guns that confiscation would have to start with tactics so inhuman that they are beyond the will of those seeking control (doubt it but that is a personal opinion) will be afraid to try ruling over an ash heap. Your fixation is irrelevant as it does NOTHING to motivate any change and if anything encourages those who seek to enslave us as advertising a desired goal. Now go be useless somewhere else.
“Perhaps the do it for me courtroom drama queens should get off their behinds and Define Gun Control according to its Roots in Racism and Genocide?”
Shut the fuck up already with this ad nauseam bullshit! There are plenty of people fighting tooth and nail to restore our rights.
Actually it is not standing, the State has standing, the issue is whether it has jurisdiction over those companies. And quite frankly, I suspect that it will be able to establish that the middlemen, wholesalers and manufacturers have “minimum contacts” with the state sufficient to support jurisdiction because their products are sold into the state.
That looks a lot like the argument James was making in stopping home shipping for ammo last year and many smaller distributers got the cease and desist letters. Forget what challenge that aspect got lumped into in the current batch.
Try to buy a mattress in Oregon and see how that works out. Do not underestimate Bob Fergusson – things are about to get much worse.
Don’t worry you can always fall back on your now legalized drugs and a statue of Lenin to worship and admire. It says a lot about the political climate in an area when a Lenin statue is erected. Just as it would make a statement about the political climate, if a statue of Adolf Hitler was erected.
And it’s interesting that so many statues, mostly Confederate, were torn down 3 years ago. and statues of Lenin and Stalin are being erected in the United States.
I remember when the Communists in this country were against drug legalization. Now they all support it.
My siblings-in-law own the land, but not the statue. They’re definitely conservative voters. Fremont is a quirky neighborhood with various artwork throughout the neighborhood. The statue has been up for sale for years.
I know “conservatives” in Washington State are not the same as conservatives in the South.
And “quirky” is not how I would describe people who put up statues of men, who personally ordered the murder of tens of thousands of civilians.
It just goes to show that the mistake Adolf Hitler made was taking photographs of everything He did. And the Communist Russian’s shot photographers dead on site. To this day the Communist holocaust deniers deny any bad happened in 1930s russia.
Well, the real problem for Hitler was that you could not join his club. If the commies rolled into town one could always roll over and go along to get along. But with the Not Zs you are either in or out and there is no way to even try to save your ass.
The 2nd problem. was that the commies mostly killed their own people or at least cloae cousins The Not Z wanted to kill everyone else. No one much cared if Russians were killing Russians, or even Ukrainians back then. But if you started killing the neighbors, well, that was a problem.
Those are the real reasons Not Zs are so demonized and commies are not, despite the commies exceeding the Not Zs body count by orders of magnitude.
Chris do you realize that statue is on private property? I’m not sure a staunch conservative would appreciate the government telling private citizens what statues they can erect on their private land.
I’ll have to ask my family members, if when they bought the property and adjacent building, was the statue already there or were they asked if it could be displayed there until a buyer could be found. They also own the building where the Fremont rocket is. My reference to “quirky” was in regards to the neighborhood, not the people. I wonder if Chris has ever been there.
How much do they want for the statue? Sounds like it woukd make a great target.
Anything to avoid holding criminals responsible for their crimes and putting them in prison.
It would be racist………..systemically and not equitable …………hold on need to look up my NY state employee handbook to find what the current line of excuses that are totally not related to communism are now.
Take your time SAFE, we know this could take awhile.
The handbook is updated every hour according to the libtards whims.
Not far from the truth and current thing appears to be redistributing illegal alie…….ern undocumented immigrants to everywhere that is not NYC here in NY because it is racist to overload a black mayor………yeah man I just don’t know.
Is it any wonder the lawyers are on everyone’s list? They try to pervert the law to meet their own agenda the rest of us be damned
Don’t worry you can always fall back on your now leg@lized drugs and a statue of Lenin to worship and admire. It says a lot about the political climate in an area when a Lenin statue is erected. Just as it would make a statement about the political climate, if a statue of Ad0lf H!tler was erected.
And it’s interesting that so many statues, mostly C0nfeder@te, were torn down 3 years ago. And statues of Lenin and St@lin are being erected in the United States.
I remember when the C0mmun!sts in this country were against drug leg@liz@tion. Now they all support it. But they have always demanded gun confiscation.
Liberal drug use city becomes WOKE to the own Liberalism.
Drug-use ban to take effect in Bellingham, Washington
https://www.cascadiadaily.com/news/2023/apr/10/drug-use-ban-to-take-effect-in-bellingham/
Dimwit Bobby is a Soros financed wannabe communist dictator. He uses free suggestions from rights crippling law firms, yes, the same sources that California uses.
Bobby has said his laws stand until SCOTUS declares them void. Look for more tricks and use of tax money against taxpayers to come.
He says he’s “confident” and that he has “better lawyers”
Since our moron governor Inslee isn’t running in 2024, Bobby has thrown his hat in the ring.
I’m just spitballing here, but I’m confident Bobby dearly hopes his laws aren’t slapped down before election time.
There’s a hearing May 12th in Grant County seeing an injunction against the blatantly unconstitutional laws. Bobby is trying to get it moved to Thurston County….so his lawyers don’t have to drive so far. BOO HOO!
https://www.kuow.org/stories/nra-joins-legal-fight-challenging-washington-s-assault-weapons-ban
If he thinks his laws stand until the Supreme Court says otherwise suggests he is either a very poor lawyer, or he is simply expressing his intent to keep appealing until he can appeal no more. Or maybe both. I hope he knows that he cannot prosecute anyone under the law except for actions taken after the effective date of the legislation, as that would be an ex post facto violation.
Will he try to assert “state’s rights”?
The law had an emergency clause putting it in effect the moment idiot Inslee signed it.
It’s law now.
“The Washington 2023 Legislative Action Group has issues”
Freudian slip Dan? 😉
greater idaho
isnt over the horizon anymore
and it just got one step closer
to being on the map
and before you say
“oh thatll never happen”
remember that almost nobody
including most of the people who voted for him
thought that trump would be elected president in 2016
covid 19
and the 2020 election
put us through the looking glass
anything can happen now
and the crazier it sounds
the more likely it is to come true
I’ve purchased most of my firearms at Federal Way Discount Guns. Ferguson and turd Inslee are both pure leftist evil and need to F off and die.
Is it becoming more clear that “Revolution is the only Solution”. I think I will have a bumper sticker made.
That dickhead is going to be our next Governor.
“While many elected officials in Washington State may strongly disagree with firearms on principal and in practice, we are still a nation with constitutional protections.”
Yeah, not really. A nation with constitutional protections would see consequences for blatant, willful, defiant violations of the Constitution. Nothing will happen to Bob Ferguson because of this except that he’ll become Governor of Washington state.
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