Gun Show Bill 5197 Dead - For Now......

Good news from Olympia, Washington, and the Washington State Senate concerning Senate bill 5197, the bill to require all private party gun sales at a gun show to be done through a FFL holder, has died in the rules committee. Yesterday at 5pm. was the deadline for bills to get voted out of committee, and 5197 didn't get voted out!

YAAAAAAAAY!!

Now, that being said, any bill that dies in committee can be brought to the Senate floor by a vote of the Senate. Our (not really the) Governor and her people are pushing really hard to get this bill passed. The more conservative Democrats who come from the more rural areas of the state don't want to vote for this bill against the wishes of their constituents, but they don't want to go against the Gov either. The best of both worlds for them would be for the bill to not get out of committee, which is how it now stands.

The bad news, and why we should not be celebrating yet, is that the Senate can bring the bill to the floor of the Senate at any time by just voting to do so. If it goes to the floor, with a Democratic 2/3 majority, it would, in my opinion, probably pass.

The good news is that the Gov is currently up to her eyebrows in two big controversies, the first being the Department of Corrections releasing 3,500 felons a month back into society and not monitoring them, and the second controversy is a battle over a overhead viaduct through downton Seattle that is falling apart, and needs to be either refurbished, or replaced with either a tunnel, a new viaduct, or surface streets. The least expensive approach, refurbishing the current viaduct, would cost half a billion dollars less than the next least expensive alternative, but the Gov refuses to even consider it. With all that going on, hopefully she will have all her troops working on those problems, and leaves the gun show bill alone.

We'll just have to wait and see.......