the Washington Senate Law & Justice Committee is scheduled to vote next week on House Bill 1240 creating a state definition of “assault weapon,” which the Gun Owners of America, or GOA, says would apply to most firearms.
One of the reasons is due to the definition of assault weapons in the bill. Although the bill specifically lists 62 rifles by name “regardless of which company produced and manufactured the firearm,” the ban also applies to any semi-automatic rifle with a barrel length less than 30 inches. The gun barrel is the section of a firearm between the action and the muzzle.
Because of this and other firearm restrictions in the bill, GOA Regional Director Monte Bowen told The Center Square that an estimated 90% of firearms would be illegal to sell and purchase. Due to the bill’s grandfather clause, it would also be eventually illegal to own them.
“The bottom story is they don’t want guns in the state of Washington,” he said. “Their whole motive is to disarm everybody from any weapon they want to have.”
The bill’s intent language states that all weapons that fall underneath the definition of “assault weapons” are “like M-16s, thus are ‘weapons most useful in military service.’”
Speaking on March 8 during debate over HB 1240, Rep. Joel McEntire, R-Cathlamet said to colleagues on the House floor “what does it mean to be ‘like’ an M-16?” A military veteran, McEntire added that “there’s nothing in here that gives a strict definition. It is a rat’s nest of interpretation.”
