Spokane Gun Control Proposal 'Tweaked'

Looking at the gun laws in Washington state, one might be forgiven for thinking that the state has dissociative identity disorder. They were a shall-issue state with preemption while also banning so-called assault weapons, among other anti-gun measures on the books there.

If we hadn't seen it all happen, it would be confusing.

But preemption is still the law in Washington state, though like most other states, there are a couple of exceptions. Local governments in most places can ban the discharging of a firearm inside the city limits, for example. In Washington, they can also ban the open carry of a firearm at municipal meetings.

In Spokane, though, a city council member sought to sort of expand the local ordinance on that and apparently screwed it up pretty badly. Now, he's trying to fix it.

 Spokane City Councilmember Paul Dillon amended his gun control measure on Monday, tightening up some of the language just two weeks after pushing it through council without a legal review. 

The ordinance garnered broad support for the most part but faced skepticism from the Spokane City Council's two conservatives. Councilmembers Jonathan Bingle and Michael Cathcart noted the lack of a review before passing and tried to defer a vote on that basis but to no avail. 

Last week, Dillon asked the council to reconsider the legislation as the legal team had noted some “really small kind of technical changes.” The minor tweaks reached the council on Monday, defining “public assembly facilities” while leaving other areas for the courts to interpret.

The main update to the measure was swapping “public assembly venue” for “public assembly facility,” which is now defined as “a stadium, convention center, arena, performance or entertainment venue or other similar facilities located within the City and operated by a municipal or public corporation or governmental entity.”

The technical change follows state law, which allows municipalities to limit the open carry of a firearm within a city-owned convention center or stadium; however, there’s no definition for a public corporation, which means the court may have to interpret if that includes private facilities. 

In other words, they're trying to expand the list of places people can't carry firearms as much as possible, all without any valid reason for making the change beyond "guns are bad."

The measure also allows the owners of these "public assembly facilities" to impose additional rules if they so desire, thus meaning many people who think they're following the rules may find out the hard way that they weren't, creating a bit of a patchwork of confusion.

The proposed ordinance would also ban guns at places where the city council is meeting, even if not as an open session. This creates a bit of a problem, though. Does this mean that if the council decides to have a meeting over dinner, the entire restaurant turns into a gun-free zone? If so, does it apply to the owner or staff?

This was meant as a tweak to make the proposal more viable, but it's still nothing more than an anti-gun overreach. At it's most charitable, it still forces people to choose between their rights: The right to keep and bear arms and the right to participate in their own governance.

And for what? To make a city council member feel better?

Because that's all that this would remotely do besides be a nightmare to live under and enforce.