Clark County sheriff named in NRA lawsuit

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The commotion surrounding the recently-passed gun control measure Initiative 1639 has intensified recently with a new lawsuit naming Clark County Sheriff Chuck Atkins as a defendant.

The suit comes at about the same time as the Washington State Attorney General released an open letter warning other sheriffs who have stated reluctance or outright refusal to enforce the new state law that they would be “liable” for their actions.

The suit against Atkins was filed earlier this month by the National Rifle Association and the Second Amendment Foundation and features two Washington gun store owners and four individuals under the age of 21 as additional plaintiffs. 

A previous lawsuit by the groups, filed shortly after the November general election, was dismissed Feb. 11 on procedural grounds, according to The Seattle Times. The new litigation essentially replaced the old and targets Atkins, Spokane Police Chief Craig Meidl and the Washington State Department of Licensing Director Teresa Berntsen.

The new suit, as in the past one, has Vancouver business owner Daniel Mitchell as one of the plaintiffs, alleging that both the rise in age for legal sales of self-loading rifles (semi-automatic) as well as the impending prohibition on interstate semi-automatic rifle sales violated the Second Amendment and the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution, respectively. Both changes in state law are part of I-1639 which passed with close to 60 percent of voter approval in November.

What’s different is that the new suit alleges Atkins, in his capacity as sheriff, would be in violation of Constitutional rights should he enforce the provisions of I-1639. The document points to a social media post by the sheriff’s office regarding the initiative detailing it would “adhere to the law as passed by a vote of the people unless a court rules that it is unconstitutional.”



Atkins could not be reached for comment before press deadline.

The suit comes as state Attorney General Bob Ferguson has penned an open letter to sheriffs and police chiefs who refuse to enforce the initiative’s law. Ferguson specifically focused on the requirement for law enforcement to run background checks on those buying semi-automatic rifles, in a similar fashion to how handguns are handled, beginning July 1.

Ferguson wrote that law enforcement heads refusing to perform the checks “could be held liable” should someone who didn’t have a background check commit a crime with that weapon.

“In short, the taxpayers of your city or county assume the financial risk of your decision to impose your personal views over the law,” Ferguson wrote.

A report from the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association noted that “law enforcement officials in at least 21 of Washington’s 39 counties have said they will not actively enforce the measure.” Cowlitz County Commissioners recently approved a resolution decrying I-1639 as unconstitutional and a threat to the county’s economics.