UPDATED 5:25 p.m. 3/9 — Evergreen State gun owners received a strong signal Friday that they may be soon facing another citizen initiative, this time aimed at so-called “assault weapons,” after the Democrat-controlled state legislature failed to pass a bill that would have raised the minimum age to buy a firearm to 21 years.
This came just hours before Republican Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed new gun control legislation, breaking with the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups. Florida has now set 21 years as the minimum age to purchase a rifle, and there will be a three-day waiting period.
The new law also allows some school employees and teachers to be armed.
But the ink had hardly dried before the NRA filed a lawsuit against the new law, arguing that it violates the constitutional rights of citizens ages 18-20. Marion Hammer, head of the Unified Sportsmen of Florida and former NRA president, told Liberty Park Press via email, “The gun control provisions in this bill do not enhance school safety. They merely punish law-abiding citizens for the actions of a mentally ill murderer as well as the failure of government officials who did not do their jobs.”
It’s a different situation at the far northwest corner of the country, where a pro-gun control columnist for the Seattle P-I.com said that it is probable that the wealthy gun prohibition lobby will try to pass a third anti-gun measure because Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee never got a chance to sign a bill.
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PROGRAM NOTE: Gun rights activists will have a chance to speak during a Town Hall event scheduled Wednesday evening, March 14, at Seattle University’s Pigott Auditorium. The program will be broadcast live on Seattle’s KIRO and feature a panel that includes Gov. Jay Inslee.
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The Seattle-based Alliance for Gun Responsibility has been raising money on the Valentine’s Day mass shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Likewise, anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety was asking for donations to support the planned March 24 “March for our Lives.”
It’s an irony that has not gone unnoticed by Second Amendment activists; high school students who evidently aren’t old enough to own guns – according to gun control proponents – but are qualified to dictate firearms policy to people who are.
“The time has come to kick butt on banning military-style weapons,” wrote gun control advocate Joel Connelly. “Quiet pleasure can be taken in telling the gun lobby: Move on over, or we’ll move on over you.”
To many in the Second Amendment community, that read more like a threat than just a warning. They appear to be gearing up for a fight.
Another irony came with the Alliance’s latest money beg in which it is trying to raise money to lobby Congress to “pass lifesaving legislation that will prevent future tragedies.”
But that was what gun control proponents said their earlier anti-gun rights measures were supposed to accomplish. The Alliance, with Bloomberg’s support, passed Initiative 594 – the universal background check measure – in Washington back in 2014. But even with the law on the books, it didn’t prevent the 2016 triple slaying of teens in Mukilteo, nor did it prevent that fall’s shooting at the Cascade Mall in Burlington that claimed five lives. Nor has it prevented other violent crimes.
Federal law has allowed the purchase of rifles and shotguns by 18-20-year-olds since passage of the 1968 Gun Control Act.
