In Washington State, you Concealed Pistol License is tied to your driver’s license. When your name is run through the computer systems used by the various municipal, county and state constabularies, a link appears that connects them directly to every gun you have ever purchased from an FFL in Washington.
It is called the Washington Handgun Registry. That second form you fill out after your 4473 divides up into multiple carbon copies, one of which is sent to the state which ties you to the firearm forever (since it doesn’t cancel out if the gun is resold through an FFL later).
During traffic stops I make it a point to hand over my driver’s license, vehicle registration, proof of insurance and my CPL so as to garner some good faith between the armed government official and myself. I know some folks say this is dumb, but because the person in the car with the flashing lights already knows that I have a CPL before I come to a complete stop, I figure I’ll let them know they have one less thing to worry about for the duration.
So far, Washington State has not used their list for mass confiscations of firearms. However, they do whip it out to confirm the surrendering of firearms in situations such as Domestic Violence or felony convictions.
For some reason, Alan Gottleib of the Second Amendment Foundation believes he can get the state to throw this list out.
“First you should know that I do not support Washington House Bill 1588 as it is currently written.
“My support for a state universal background check bill must include a substantial victory for gun owners that includes, but is not limited to repealing, prohibiting and destroying the current state handgun registration system and the data base of several million records of gun owners and their firearms that include the type of handguns and the serial numbers.
“This would be a huge victory for our gun rights. We would be the first state to repeal a gun registration system. Think about that and what it means for your privacy as a gun owner and the fact that we all know historically that registration leads to confiscation.
“In addition, if you have a carry permit you will be exempt from additional background checks. No checks would be required for transfers between family members. If you are a member of an organization like the Washington Arms Collectors that does a background check for membership, you would be exempt from additional checks to buy a firearm at their gun shows.
“There are other inclusions that must be made as well that are good for our rights and freedom that need to be in a final bill to have my support.
“My guess is that the gun grabbers will not go along with these provisions and kill the bill. If they do the “blood†so to speak is on their hands, not ours.
“There are other smart, tactical, political and morally justified reasons why I have taken this position that I do not want to make public at this time. We do have enemies and I am not going to telegraph our strategy to them by spelling out our battle plans.
“I enjoy winning our freedoms more than the fight. I wish I can say that about some of my critics who have pre-judged without knowledge what it is that I am doing.
“Anyone who knows me knows that for the past forty years my efforts have expanded and protected our right to keep and bear arms from local city councils all the way to the United States Supreme Court.â€
Alan Gottlieb
Good luck, Alan. Don’t fuck this up.
Correction, not every gun, just every pistol.
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Correct they do not list long guns of any kind. Yet. Alot of new owners purchasing guns second hand from indivuals like to “re-register” the pistols under their own names and to be fair the record does often serve a real purpose in criminal investigations, tracking down owners who’s guns have been recovered and recovering the needed information to report thefts of guns from legal owners who have lost the information like the make and serial numbers. As well as establishing prior ownership and vetting the information in estate disputes…so yes it should go but it is a usefull and important tool for good at times….all this information (first FFL sale) is also available from ATF at need…
At least this is an honest use of the much maligned term compromise. “We give something, we get something,” as opposed to the more typical “we give something, we don’t get bent over as far as they want us to go.”
This is futile. Any anti-gun zealot can make a bootleg copy of a backup disk, and keep it on his home computer or on a CD or DVD. How are you going to be sure that “all” copies of the database are destroyed? I doubt that the files involved are bigger than you could hold on a cheap thumb drive.
Once the information is collected, it is impossible to eliminate it.
The one thing that MIGHT help is if there were severe criminal penalties for keeping and/or using any copies of the list. Make information from the list inadmissible in court, for search warrant requests, generating investigative leads. Anything that results from use of that list becomes “tainted fruit” which gives your target a get out of jail free card.
The trouble is, that if they can pass this law, they can repeal it next year.
I love Virginia. My CC permit is tied to my license too. This has been proven to me by a couple of traffic stops due to the um…mistaken belief by the cops that I was exceeding the speed limit. That’s my story….
Anyway…. its not tied to any weapon though. I love private sales. They might have a record of one gun if they are linked to the FFL …but, I haven’t seen this.
Washington is a little weird. My adult son was recently stopped for speeding. He was and he realized it immediately, he had been away from his wife and daughters for a week, and he was anxious to return to them. He was on and Interstate, in a 60 zone, traveling 70-75.
The first question out of the Troopers mouth was, “Do you have a firearm in your vehicle with you?” My son had handed him his CC permit with his license, but it was obvious he knew ahead of time. My son stated that he did, it was in his backpack on the seat beside him. The trooper then asked if my son would remove the weapon, unload it, and hand it to him.
My son was then in an impossible situation.
A) Refuse, and watch the charges escalate rapidly from speeding to reckless driving or resisting arrest.
B) Cooperate, and give up his rights. Caught completely off guard, he surrendered his weapon as requested.
The officer reduced his ticket to 5 over from 15 over, and returned the weapon, requesting that my son not reload until the officer had pulled away.
We’ve discussed this at length, and this misuse of the list puts citizens at a distinct disadvantage.
Haven’t had a Trooper pull that one on me… but it’s been several years since I was pulled over, as well. Interesting.
The obvious solution, as I told him, was pay attention to your speed!
BUT….what about when you get pulled over for a dead tail light, or headlight, or whatever? (My wife got pulled over for that old favorite, a license plate light that was out!)
Not good at all!