Anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety lobbying organization has pledged $500,000 to a new initiative campaign in Washington State aimed at creating a law that the Democrat-controlled Legislature wouldn’t pass out of committee.
Initiative 1491 is backed by the Alliance for Gun Responsibility (AGR), which is an updated version of the Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility, which was responsible for Initiative 594 that was passed in 2014 after a $10.3 million campaign.
I-1491 is a so-called “extreme risk protection order” measure that Evergreen State gun rights activists are raising alarms about because they allege it contains language that would threaten a person’s due process rights. The thrust of this initiative is to allow gun owners to be disarmed if family members or others deem them to be an “extreme risk.”
Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation and chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, was blunt in his assessment.
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“What we really need is a restraining-protection order law that stops Bloomberg and his cadre of anti-rights organizations from spending millions of dollars to violate our right of due process,” Gottlieb told Guns.com. “This is not just about guns. It is about the rule of law in a free society.”
Second Amendment activists say one of the problems with the measure is the same problem that they had with I-594. It’s lengthy, covering 20 pages. I-594 was 18 pages long, and critics say this allows lots of things to be hidden in “the small print.”
In a statement explaining their pledge, Everytown President John Feinblatt said, “Washington’s Moms Demand Action chapter, the Alliance for Gun Responsibility, gun violence survivors, and other gun safety advocates are rolling up their sleeves once again – this time, with the goal of empowering law enforcement and families alike to prevent tragedy when someone poses a significant threat to self or others.
We’re thrilled to support this important next step in Washington’s gun violence prevention movement, and we look forward to I-1491 becoming law.”
But Protect Our Gun Rights, a coalition of gun rights groups that includes CCRKBA, has come out swinging. POGR noted in an e-mail funding appeal that it has already spent $45,000 on legal bills to fight I-594 and Seattle’s so-called “gun violence tax.”
“All that’s necessary for Bloomberg and his billions to triumph is for good men and women to do nothing,” the POGR appeal said.
H/T Seattle Gun Rights Examiner
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