While the eyes of Washington State voters are focused on the race for governor between Democrat Bob Ferguson and Republican Dave Reichert, there is another critical political race—for Ferguson’s AG replacement—pitting two men with diametrically opposite views on the Second Amendment, according to Axios.

Liberal Democrat Nick Brown, a former U.S. attorney now working part-time for the Pacifica Law Group, is facing Republican Pete Serrano, currently Pasco mayor. As noted by Axios, they have already butted heads in court in a case challenging the state’s ban on so-called “assault weapons.” Serrano represents two gun shops in different cases, one involving the gun ban and the other challenging the ban on so-called “Large-capacity magazines.”

Gun control has become a get-out-the-vote issue for Washington conservatives who are convinced Ferguson, who labored for the past several years to get legislation banning magazines and modern semiautomatic rifles through the Legislature, will be even more of a threat to their rights under the state and federal constitutions than outgoing Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee.

According to the Axios article, “The state’s top lawyer is tasked with defending Washington laws, including recently enacted statewide bans on selling AR-15-style rifles and high-capacity gun magazines.”

Yet, while Ferguson has been attorney general, his office did not defend Washington state’s 40-year-old firearms preemption statute against the cities of Edmonds and Seattle. That task was left to the Second Amendment Foundation and the National Rifle Association, which won their lawsuit defending the preemption statute. Both cities adopted local ordinances mandating so-called “safe storage” of firearms, which they had no authority to do under the preemption law.

Under Ferguson, the state attorney general’s office was also silent when Seattle adopted a special tax on guns and ammunition sales in 2015.

Serrano and Brown emerged as the respective candidates of their parties in the August primary.

Axios reported that Brown also helped draft and defend anti-gun-rights Initiative 1639, passed by voters in 2018. It raised the minimum age to purchase a semiautomatic rifle from 18 to 21 years, and included a proof-of-training requirement. It also invented a definition for “assault rifles” which literally applies to every semi-auto rifle ever manufactured anywhere in the world. The measure was opposed by gun rights organizations and all but a few of the state’s 39 county sheriffs.

“‘Semiautomatic assault rifle’ means any rifle which utilizes a portion of the energy of a firing cartridge to extract the fired cartridge case and chamber the next round, and which requires a separate pull of the trigger to fire each cartridge.”

While Brown has been active in gun control, Serrano—according to the Axios profile—is “co-director and general counsel of Silent Majority Foundation, a nonprofit that has filed four lawsuits challenging the state’s gun laws.”

While this race is flying under the radar in Washington, it is no less important than the gubernatorial election pitting anti-gunner Ferguson against former Sheriff Reichert, who has contended the real problem with growing crime in the Evergreen State is lax policies practiced by Ferguson’s office against criminals.

By no small coincidence, Ferguson and Reichert were scheduled to debate Tuesday evening, immediately following the presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

The issues appear clearly similar, including the economy (including inflation, cost-of-living), public safety, energy (the high cost of transportation) and taxes.

One day before the presidential debate, the Harris campaign finally released her campaign platform, which contains this about gun control: “As President, she won’t stop fighting so that Americans have the freedom to live safe from gun violence in our schools, communities, and places of worship. She’ll ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, require universal background checks, and support red flag laws that keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. She will also continue to invest in funding law enforcement, including the hiring and training of officers and people to support them, and will build upon proven gun violence prevention programs that have helped reduce violent crime throughout the country.”

The Trump campaign, on the other hand, simply states it will “Defend our constitution, our bill of rights, and our fundamental freedoms, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms.” It probably needn’t say anything beyond this, since the nation’s gun owners have heard enough promises and all they want is to be left alone to exercise their rights.

In Washington state, Republicans in recent years have always run from behind because of the Democrat vote, but this year could be different. There are initiatives on the ballot, all expected to bring out a strong conservative vote. These issues could make the difference.

About Dave Workman