WA lawmakers to prohibit assault weapon sales for public safety. What do the facts say?

Austin Harlan, owner of The Range in Yakima, says early spring is generally the time of year that gun sales start to slow. But this year, Washington state residents are rushing to purchase firearms due to legislation poised to ban the commercial sale, manufacturing and distribution of assault weapons.

In multiple Washington counties, gun shop employees told McClatchy News that they have received a substantial increase in assault weapon inquiries since the beginning of this year’s legislative season in January. Many citizens are rushing to buy remaining stock of AK-style rifles before stores can no longer sell them.

In addition, Trace data from the the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) shows Washington gun ownership was already increasing in recent years.

Here’s what you need to know about what Washington state lawmakers say they aim to achieve with the new gun legislation, the history of gun sales in Washington and the U.S., and what studies say about how assault weapons tie into the last 50 years of mass shootings in America.

What does the law say?

Washington’s most recently-proposed gun restriction legislation, HB 1240, would ban the “manufacture, importation, distribution, sale, or offer for sale of any assault weapon.” This extends to assault weapon large capacity magazines. The bill doesn’t take away assault weapons from people who already possess them, nor does it bar Washingtonians from inheriting such guns.

The Washington Legislature states in the bill that its purpose is to increase public safety and prevent future potential mass shootings.

“Assault weapons are civilian versions of weapons created for the military and are designed to kill humans quickly and efficiently,” the bill states. “Assault weapons have been used in the deadliest mass shootings in the last decade. … An assailant with an assault weapon can hurt and kill twice the number of people than an assailant with a handgun or nonassault rifle.”

The bill claims that assault weapons have caused 85% of the deaths involved in shootings that resulted in the deaths of four or more people. The number comes from a 2019 comparative study of mass shootings.

National gun sales and manufacturing

The gun industry has been rapidly expanding in the U.S. over the past few decades. For instance, applications for firearms processed by the ATF have increased exponentially since 2005, according to the agency’s data. The National Firearms Act Division of the ATF is in charge of upholding its namesake legislation, looking at all applications to make, export, transfer or register guns. The division processed 147,000 NFA-regulated firearms from applications in 2005. In 2022, this number had grown to over 3,000,000 guns.

But the gun industry sells millions of more firearms per year that aren’t necessarily NFA-regulated, according to estimates from the nonprofit organization Brady United Against Against Gun Violence. In 2007, the total number of non-NFA guns sold averaged 600,000-700,000 units per month. In 2022, most months routinely saw more than 1,200,000 total firearm sales, which continues the trend of high gun sales since March 2020.

Overall, more than 24 million AK-style or AR-15 rifles have circulated into the U.S., the National Shooting Sports Foundation estimated in 2022.

Harlan, the Yakima gun shop owner, said that according to The Range’s sales reports for April 1 through 11 in 2021, 2022 and 2023, the number of units sold more than doubled from 2021 to 2023. The related revenue increase in that time period was around $95,000.

Harlan said there were different factors impacting the sales and revenue in 2022, including a ban that impacted the sale of magazines and saw mandatory wait periods. According to Harlan, 2021 was more of a “normal year.”

History of mass shootings in America

Deaths by guns have increased exponentially in America over the last 50 years. Many over the course of this period involved a semi-automatic weapon. The rate of mass shootings in particular have been a plague on American society over the last decade.

Since 1966, about 25% of mass shooters used semi automatic firearms to carry out murders, according to a 2022 study by the National Institute of Justice. Most shooters, a full 77%, acquired their weapons legally. In cases involving shootings at K-12 school, 80% of individuals who carried out shootings stole weapons from family members.

Here are other key takeaways from the report:

• The report covered 167 mass shootings since 1966. Twenty percent of them occurred from 2015 to 2019.

• Sixteen of the 20 deadliest mass shootings occurred between 1999 and 2019.

• One in five mass shooters studied past mass shootings.

• About 97% of mass shooters have been men, and more than half were white.

The Pew Research Center has also presented data on the rise in gun deaths, mass shootings involving children and the groups of people likeliest to be involved in gun-related fatalities.

• Firearm murder rates surged throughout the 2010s and experienced a huge spike in 2020. Assault weapons were involved in 3% of all gun-related murders that year.

• Active shooter incidents continue to be on an upwards trajectory since 2000.

• In Washington, there were 10.9 gun deaths per 100K people in 2020, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overall, the majority of gun-related deaths for adults in 2021 was suicide.

• U.S. gun deaths among children under 18 rose 50% from 2019 to 2021. Sixty percent of deaths in 2021 for children were homicides.

• More than 80% of gun deaths in children were boys in 2021. Kids ages 12 to 17 made up 86% of all gun deaths that year.

• Black children were fives times likelier to die from guns than white children.

• Another poll from the Pew Research Center finds that one in five parents are “extremely” anxious about their children getting shot. A quarter of parents are “somewhat” worried, while 54% aren’t concerned.