Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility, the campaign behind an initiative to require background checks for all gun buyers in Washington State, raised at least another $1 million at a 90-minute kickoff lunch this afternoon, sending an early signal that the gun lobby will face a well-financed challenge on the fall ballot.
Among the donations was $50,000 from former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and his wife, Connie Snyder. That contribution, along with donations from the roughly 1,200 attendees at the Westin Hotel, were doubled by the pledge of $500,000 in matching funds from an anonymous donor. Campaign manager Zach Silk says that brought the event’s haul to over $1 million, while venture capitalist and progressive activist Nick Hanauer has also pledged $1 million in total contributions. The group had reported $1.7 million in donations as of April, so it’s easily in $3 million territory more than five months ahead of the election.
Silk predicts the gun lobby could throw $10 million to $20 million into a counter-campaign. Silk says his group needs about $8 million to stay competitive.
Initiative 594 would require background checks on all gun sales and transfers, which, unbelievably, are not currently required between private parties—thereby allowing a person of any mental or criminal history to buy a firearm without scrutiny. I-594 would require gun transaction to be performed in front of a licensed dealer, who would call in the background check like any gun purchased directly from the dealer.
Polls show the measure passing with support of about three-quarters of voters, but, because politics is insane, a competing measure called Initiative 591 will appear on the same ballot to ban state-mandated background checks. And then, again, because politics is the only thing crazier than a gun-waving lunatic, polling shows both measures passing (but the pro-background-check initiative fares better by about 20 points).
If I-594 passes, it won’t end gun violence in America. That’s a dumb debate to have about background checks. It could help reduce gun violence and gun accidents. But most of all, after years of a narrative that gun laws can’t change, largely because chickenshit legislators refuse to stand up the NRA and the rest of the gun lobby, passing a law like this would be monumental. It would shift the story, which goes something like this: Progressives can’t win sensible gun policy, so don’t bother trying. As Silk puts it, by passing I-594, Washington would “move the needle” and “give legislators the courage to do other things that reduce gun violence.”