Madame Chair, esteemed committee members -
My name is **snip**, and I come before you today to testify against Senate Bill 5197 as a gay man, as a former activist in the Seattle LGBT community, and the founding President of Cease Fear.
My community anything but a stranger to oppression and harassment, at both the hands of bigots and legislators, as I am sure Senator Murray can confirm.
As a community, we are also after much agonizing coming to the realization that while our friends in law enforcement will investigate and prosecute subsequent to hate crimes and assaults, that the odds are that they will not miraculously be there to intervene during an attack, and we must assume responsibility for our own safety.
Historically, one of the most powerful tools used against us was to harass our gatherings and our associations. Senate Bill 5197 reeks of this sort of harassment.
Senate Bill 5197 is founded on at best a myth, at worst, a cynical lie.
All the laws that apply to the sales of firearms anywhere in the State of Washington apply with equal vigor at any gun show in the State of Washington. Licensed dealers must comply with all the Federal and State statutory and regulatory requirements they must follow in their own shops; private individuals are barred by both law and show rules from selling to any person they have reason to believe may not lawfully have a firearm.
The United States Department of Justice tells us that gun shows are in fact the least likely source of felons’ firearms, with less than 1% originating from shows. Almost 80% of criminals obtain their guns illegally - from family or friends buying for them what they cannot buy for themselves, or in street purchases of stolen firearms - such as Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske's Glock 9mm stolen from his car.
None of the high visibility incidents over the past year in the Greater Seattle area has involved a firearm purchased at a gun show. Already the single gun show organizer in the Seattle area, the Washington Arms Collectors, requires a background check before even accepting membership, let alone making sales or purchases of firearms.
Since regulating gun shows would only mandate an expensive, invasive, and redundant second background check on private citizens in an environment where any sort of misconduct is already vanishingly rare - what is to be gained?
The Washington Arms Collectors are one of the most powerful firearms rights groups in the State; barring or inhibiting their members from gathering or sharing their interests significantly weakens their ability to fund-raise, promote their hobby, and the ability of their members to participate in the political process - all advantages to misguided gun control proponents and their philosophical allies. It doesn’t hurt that SB 5197 reduces the opportunity for people to be exposed to firearms in a non-threatening or even positive environment.
Given the loosely written definition of a Gun Show in the bill, three law-abiding citizens standing around at a firing range after target practice, bandying about the latest gossip - would become criminals if one then sold a firearm to another - though the transaction was in all other respects lawful.
This would effectively force a prudent citizen into a de facto acceptance of processing all firearms transactions through a licensed dealer with all the record-keeping, expense, and intrusiveness thereof...and generate significant costs to the state to both administer and enforce.
The only benefit is a sop thrown elitists and supporters of enhancing victim vulnerability, who believe that the average citizen should not be trusted with an implement as dangerous as a rubber spoon - and that sop will come at significant expense.
A bill such as this, supported only by fallacy and prejudice, is a bill to be ashamed of - Senate Bill 5197 should never have been proposed by any responsible legislator, is a waste of this committee's time and energy, and should never see the light of day beyond this committee as the Senate has many issues on its' plate that actually require deliberation and in some cases, urgent action, including in Seattle alone the 520 Bridge and the Alaskan Way Viaduct...actual disasters waiting to happen.
When the time comes, I urge you to vote no on Senate Bill 5197, and turn your attention to matters where your efforts will be of greater service than "looking busy" for the next electoral cycle and throwing useless sops.
Thank you, Madam Chairperson and esteemed committee members. May logic and fact triumph over fear and prejudice in all your deliberations.
