Guess I'm not a very observant gun owner.

Life as a gun owner isn’t half-bad in Washington.  Getting a concealed carry permit is very simple…pay finger the finger prints, drop off your application, and I am not sure that my wife or I ever had to wait more than 3 business days for the actual permit to show up in the mail, which is nice.  On the other hand, compared to our neighbors in Oregon and Idaho, we are down-trodden…no Class 3, no Short-barreled rifles or shotguns.

The Washington laws on suppressors  is a good example of Northwest Wishy-Washyness…silencer’s were legal to own in Washington State, but it was a gross misdemeanor to actually USE one.  I had a few friends in the shipyard who would get around this by making sure they brought police officer buddies with them whenever they went shooting, so they could enjoy the use of their suppressers. 

Well, thanks to the Washington State Legislature(and…gulp…Governor Gregoire) on April 11^th a bill was passed which did away with this Gross Misdemeanor, making it legal to both own AND use your suppressors.    There is a 90 day period after the Legislature is out of session before the bill will become law, but that’s fine, because it will take at least that long for people like me to figure out the application process works to get my tax stamp(as well as a few months to convince my wife it will be worth it…and I have no doubt it will be).

The other interesting part of this is that it explains another mystery that I was waiting for a free minute or two to get to the bottom of.  When I was at ACE hardware this weekend drooling over LR-308’s, they had two Ruger 22/45’s with threaded barrels in the display case.  At the time I had thought that maybe they were being a bit aggressive targeting the crowd that occasionally runs to Oregon (45 minutes)and Idaho(2 hours) to use their toys…but now that I know the whole truth, I’m kicking myself for not being observant.

I don’t entirely blame myself for not being observant…this wasn’t given huge headlines in the state media.  Even the story I linked to today was talking about 3 bills that passed: one changing the end of High School math testing requirements, one that changed how counties are able to dispose of dead bodies(open for bid now vs. forced rotation through different funeral homes) and finally, the bill for suppressors, which got the least amount of print of any of the new bills.