Bill to promote safe gun storage passes through committee

OLYMPIA — A bill which would make adults liable for their firearms being accessed by children, passed the House Judiciary committee on Thursday with seven “yes” votes and six “no” votes.

The prime sponsor of HB 1122, Rep. Ruth Kagi, D-Seattle, said this is the fourth time she has introduced the bill. She said this year, she wanted the bill to be much broader in scope than the previous versions, which just created penalties for children accessing firearms.

The bill would make an adult liable if a firearm they own is unsafely stored and accessed by a child.

After the feedback during the hearing in the Judiciary committee, she decided to narrow the bill to be similar to past versions, only restricting child access.

On Feb. 2, the 21st anniversary of the fatal Frontier Middle School shooting in Moses Lake, several family members of victims testified in support of the bill.

Rep. Steve Kirby, D-Tacoma, voted in support of the bill. He said he does not believe legislation can solve irresponsible behavior, but believes this bill is a good step in improving gun safety measures.

Rep. Jay Rodne, R-Snoqualmie, said he is afraid this bill could be used to penalize grieving parents.

“I think this bill seeks a really valiant goal, which is to change behavior,” Rodne said. “We’re going to see other bills on the agenda today, incentivizing proper and appropriate behavior, I think that’s much more effective in terms of getting at the changes we’d like to see as opposed to making criminal sanctions.”

Kagi said the primary goal of the bill is to prevent teen suicide by restricting access to firearms in the home.

“So many people feel that they have trained their children to be responsible around guns,” Kagi said. “It never occurs to them that their teenager could have so much despair that if they could get access to a gun, they would commit suicide.”