Washington state hasn't been pro-gun for quite a while. It was at one time, but I guess when Silicon Valley decided to move north, they brought too much of the anti-gun agenda with them.
However, there was a glimmer of hope recently in the state.
Not much of one, mind you, but then the vote on what is, in essence, a pro-gun measure is 95-1 in the state House, it's mostly good news.
Mostly.
In a state where gun debates often split cleanly along party lines, a bill backed by a Republican gun-rights advocate and a Democrat widely known for supporting stricter firearm regulations sailed through the House of Representatives.
On Friday, the House passed House Bill 2235 on a 95—1 vote. The measure, sponsored by Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, would exempt records tied to Washington’s recently passed permit-to-purchase law from public disclosure.
In 2025, the Legislature passed the gun permit bill, and it goes into effect on May 1, 2027.
Walsh worked with Democrats, including Rep. Liz Berry, D-Seattle — a lawmaker with a record of vigorously advocating for stricter gun regulations, on his latest proposal. The pairing may seem unlikely. But these two framed the bill not as a shift in gun policy, but as what Walsh called a “mechanical fix” — a way to “close a gap” in the state’s Public Records Act before the new permit-to-purchase system takes effect.
“I don’t like PRA carveouts, and I don’t like permit-to-purchase,” Walsh said. “But this bill uses a PRA carveout to patch a policy hole. So to me, it was two negatives equaling a positive.”
Under the new framework, applicants must submit personally identifying information, including training certificates and background check materials, in order to obtain a gun permit. Walsh said he became concerned that, without a specific exemption, those records could be accessed through public records requests.
Protecting gun owner privacy is important, to be sure, and while it's entirely possible that these records might have been accessible without that exemption, this isn't exactly the kind of win anyone in Washington's pro-gun community is going to cheer for.
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It simply makes a terrible law a smidge less terrible.
The truth of the matter is that permit-to-purchase laws are blatantly unconstitutional.
Let's compare this to voting rights, just for fun, since that's a topic Democrats have been losing their minds over. Note that the information that isn't accessible with this bill is things like training certificates. That's a requirement for a purchase permit in the state, so in addition to being legally here, you also have to prove that you underwent specific training in order to exercise a constitutionally protected right.
This is from the same people who think that women and minorities are unable to get a valid photo ID and present it when they go to vote. I can't even imagine what they'd do if we forced everyone to undergo civics training in order to register to vote. The blue-haired brain explosions would be glorious to behold, though. It would probably look a lot like the end of The Kingsmen.
So yeah, this is a positive move.
It's just a really terrible example of a positive move needed because of a really negative one.
But it's bipartisanship and, for once, it's not bipartisanship in the name of screwing people over, so I guess that's a win.
