After being on hold for more than two weeks, the Washington State Patrol has resumed processing background checks on firearm transfers. The state’s SAFE system, which is used in place of the FBI’s National Instant Background Check system, was taken offline earlier this month after the state’s Administration of Courts reported an “intrusion” on its network, leaving thousands of pending background checks in limbo and delaying gun sales for days.
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The Second Amendment Foundation threatened litigation over the halt on background checks, with SAF executive vice president Alan Gottlieb arguing that the delays amounted to a denial of the right to keep and bear arms for those would-be gun owners forced to twiddle their thumbs until the state signed off on their purchase.
There’s no official word on how many transfers were delayed, but the State Patrol says its making progress in clearing the backlog of background checks.
WSP personnel was able to complete over 6,500 of the backlogged checks within the first eight hours of service being restored, according to WSP. During the system outage, WSP continued to do the non-AOC related work so that once data services were regained the delayed background checks could be completed quickly.
It’s good to see that they’ve been able to give the green light to thousands of transfers, but these delays shouldn’t have happened in the first place. They weren’t the fault of the State Patrol, and the SAFE system wasn’t taken offline out of maliciousness on the part of any state officials, but that doesn’t change the fact that there was no backup system in place available for the WSP once the state-run system was shut down.
That needs to change going forward, because the deprivation of rights over the past few weeks is completely unacceptable.
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During the outage, the Washington State Patrol (WSP) received an average of 700 background check requests daily, but none could be processed. Thousands of firearm sales were delayed, leaving buyers, sellers, and business owners frustrated.
“We’re still taking applications, but there’s no timeline we can give people,” said Melissa Denny, owner of Pistol Annie’s Jewelry and Pawn in Bonney Lake, during the outage. “We take the brunt of the frustration from customers who don’t understand the delays.”
According to KIRO-TV in Seattle, the Washington State Patrol says it will take about a week to process all of the checks that have been delayed since the beginning of the month.
Washington’s 10-day waiting period, which was implemented on January 1, 2024, is already an affront to our right to keep and bear arms; needlessly forcing residents to put their rights on hold for more than a week, not because of any technical challenges to conducting background checks in a timely manner, but for a state-mandated “cooling off” period that supporters say could prevent some suicides.
There is little evidence that’s the case, but we do know that waiting periods do have an impact on those who need access to a gun in a timely manner. Maine’s 3-day waiting period is the subject of a new federal lawsuit, and as the plaintiffs argued in their initial complaint, the state-imposed delays are putting some people at risk.
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Like J White Gunsmithing, A&G Shooting also sells firearms to people with a time sensitive need to acquire a firearm. A&G has found itself in such a situation twice since Section 2016 took effect. In the first instance, a single woman from a nearby town came to the store on a Thursday because her local police officer recommended that she purchase a firearm for home defense. The woman had just learned that she had a stalker looking through the windows and harassing her on her property. Although the police issued a restraining order against the accused individual, they also recommended that the woman obtain a firearm for self-defense. Hendsbee worked with her for over an hour to pick out a firearm that she would be comfortable with and encouraged her to sign up for training to learn additional skills and safety practices. After Hendsbee collected the woman’s identifying information, NICS issued a “proceed” determination, and she paid for the firearm in full. But because of Section 2016, she could not take possession of the firearm for 72 more hours. And because A&G is closed on Sundays and Mondays, the nex tavailable day for her to pick up the firearm was the following Tuesday. The woman was visibly shaken to learn that she would have to wait four more days to obtain the means for effective self defense.
A 10-day wait is even more abusive to our right to keep and bear arms, and when its coupled with a weeks-long suspension of all background checks the damage is incontrovertible… and for those unable to access a firearm when they need one, irreparable.
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The Democrat-controlled legislature isn’t going to repeal its waiting period on its own, but hopefully these artificial delays will be struck down by the courts. As for the SAFE system, lawmakers could and should take steps to ensure that when the state-run system is down the State Patrol still has access to NICS. That shouldn’t be controversial, but given the anti-2A attitudes in Olympia I wouldn’t be surprised if the legislature refuses to provide a fix to stop these delays from happening in the future.
