Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson on Tuesday signed into law a controversial policy requiring gun buyers to first pay for a new state permit.
Starting in two years, House Bill 1163 will require those interested in purchasing guns to apply for a five-year permit through the Washington State Patrol. Applicants must pay a fee and have completed a certified firearms safety training program within the past five years, with limited exceptions.
“Gun violence in Washington state breaks apart too many families and kills too many children,” Ferguson said. “We must put commonsense reforms into place that save lives.”
Ferguson, a Democrat, advocated for gun control in his three terms as Washington’s attorney general.
The permit system, set to take effect on May 1, 2027, goes beyond the state’s existing background checks, which also require proof of completion of a firearm safety course. Washington also has a 10-day waiting period after a gun dealer requests a background check before they can hand over the gun.
State authorities will have to approve one of these new permits if the applicant meets the criteria, as long as they aren’t the subject of an arrest warrant or barred from having guns in the first place.
The state patrol must issue the permit within 30 days, or 60 days if the applicant doesn’t have a state identification card. If an applicant feels the state wrongly denied them a permit, they can appeal in court.
The state patrol expects the new program will cost just over $20 million in the 2027-29 budget cycle. Fees collected for fingerprinting and background checks would offset the cost. The system could bring in over $35 million in the 2027-29 biennium, according to the latest fiscal analysis.
The measure passed the Legislature along party lines, with Democrats in support.
Democrats say the law will strengthen the state’s efforts to limit gun violence and suicides.
The bill’s prime sponsor, Rep. Liz Berry, D-Seattle, said the law has been a decade in the making.
“I am a mom of two young kids, and I’m someone who has lost someone I love to gun violence,” she said Tuesday. “This bill is transformative for our state, and we’re not done. We’ve got more to do.”
Republicans and gun owners counter that the law is an unconstitutional barrier to the right to bear arms, which is embedded in the state and U.S. constitutions.
Some critics insist the law will face court challenges in light of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2022 in which the justices ruled new gun laws need to be aligned with the nation’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
About a dozen other states have such permit-to-purchase systems. Courts across the country have largely upheld them.
This month, the state Supreme Court upheld a similarly divisive ban on the sale of high-capacity ammunition magazines in a 7-2 ruling, but didn’t grapple with whether Washington’s law stayed true to the historical tradition.
Opponents of that law vowed to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on Second Amendment grounds.
The new permit-to-purchase law was the primary piece of gun control legislation lawmakers approved in Olympia this year.
Failed measures would have restricted bulk purchases of ammunition and firearms, imposed an excise tax on firearm and ammunition sales, added new requirements for weapons dealers and further limited the public places where people can carry firearms.
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