Credit: William Kirk, Washington Gun Law
Hello again, everyone. Welcome to Washington Gun Law tv. I'm Washington Gun Law President William Kirk. Thanks for joining us. Hey, when we're talking about concealed carry reciprocity and things like that, we always talk about how absurd it is that you could literally have all your constitutional rights and the minute you drive across the state line, suddenly one of them just poof, vanishes crazy, isn't it? Well, could you imagine if that actually happened inside your state? That is anytime you cross city limits, anytime you cross the county line, anytime you went to a different area code, the laws changed, and therefore you may go from legal to illegal or vice versa, or God forbid, you go on a long road trip all the way across your state and something like that, and you're going from legal to illegal to illegal to the illegal, back and forth, back and forth, too many times to count.
Well, that's why you have state preemption laws to avoid that kind of absurdity. But guess what? One of the ways that I think some of these states are going to try to trump proof things is what they're going to try to do is alleviate their state preemption laws, and I'll explain the very nefarious purpose they have in doing so, and I'll explain to you exactly how I think they're going to try to do it as well. So today, let's spend a few minutes and let's talk about your state's most important gun law and why they want to get rid of it.
Okay? Before we get going too far down the road and going down, let's remember that this video is being brought to us by our good friends at the Sonara Desert Institute. That's right. Launch your career today in the firearm industry. Do that through education. Start arming yourself individually with knowledge all through education, and most importantly, start defending the in alienable rights of millions of Americans nationwide all through education. Listen, they have a program, a degree, a certificate, whatever you may desire, whatever your interest may be. For more information, check 'em out in the description box below, or visit 'em at sdi.edu. Okay, America, here's what we're talking about. It's a boring topic. It never gets a lot of views. I just need you all to understand how really, really important this is, is your state preemption law in a nutshell, without sounding all geeky and sounding like a lawyer, what a state preemption law says is that only the state government gets to restrict firearms.
And so that the restrictions on any type of possession where you can carry, who can carry what can be carried, any of that kind of stuff, is only going to come from your state legislature, and therefore you end up with uniform gun laws all the way around your state. My state, for example, over on this side of the state, very, very blue, very, very anti-gun. The people over on this side of the state, exactly the opposite. Okay? And to all my friends there in eastern Washington, but guess what? We all live under the same crappy gun laws, and your state may be like that as well, right, Illinois. But listen, here's the thing, okay. We have seen in just the last couple of weeks, blatant challenges to state preemption law. And I'll point out, there was a challenge many years ago here in Washington state that was so violative of our state preemption law that the Washington State Supreme Court ruled nine zero in favor of the gun owners.
That's right. The Washington State Supreme Court ruled nine zero. That was against the city of Edmonds, the city who decided that they knew much better than everyone else, and they needed to enact their own safe storage provisions above and beyond what state law mandates and were sued. They lost in the trial court, they appealed it. They lost in the appellate court, they appealed it. They went all the way to the Supreme Court. They got stoned up there as well. It was absolute waste of their taxpayers money. But more recently, more recently, we have seen and now instances in both Tennessee and Missouri, okay? Two pretty pro Second Amendment states where you got local jurisdictions, counties, or municipalities just going, well, we're going to just pass some gun laws. Anyways, let me show you what's going on here. Okay? Just recently, and despite the fact that the state of Tennessee has a state preemption law, the citizens of Memphis voted on and approved self-imposed gun control regulations, including a ban on assault weapons.
However, the city of Memphis defines them, I guess as well as a license required to carry firearms inside the city of Memphis. Now, what's even more tragic than the citizens of Memphis approving this was the fact that it even made it onto the ballot in general, knowing that there was a clear violation of Tennessee State preemption law, but that's exactly what the city of Memphis wanted. Now, lawsuits are already filed. The law is set to go into effect January 1st, 2025. There are motions for injunctions and all that. We will keep you posted Memphis on what happens with that. But then when you talk to the people who propose this law, what do they say? They basically say, Hey, yeah, we knew it was going to be against state preemption, but we kind of wanted to pick this fight, which tells me that there's a playbook out there that is telling this is the time to fight against state preemption laws, but there's more.
But then there's Jackson County, Missouri. That's right, Missouri, the state that passed the Second Amendment Preservation Act. Well, they're now attempting to pass a countywide ordinance that would increase the minimum wage for purchase of firearms and ammunition inside that county only. Now, the county executive told the county council, Hey, you know what? This is going to violate Missouri State preemption law because it does, and therefore he vetoed it. But the county then overrode the veto. One of the Jackson County legislators was then on the record stating the bill was drafted, knowing it would be challenged, but we're hoping for a court battle. And then if you just start doing a Google search on news articles related to state preemption laws, you're going to see that they're beginning to pop up with much more frequency. And so one of the ways that some of these rather blue states are going to try to trump proof their gun laws is they're going to turn all the local governments loose.
And if you think driving across the country in a tapestry of discombobulated gun laws is a challenge already, just think when that tapestry exists inside your state, or worse yet, in some instances, just inside a single county, because that's what's coming into your neighborhood. If your state preemption law is repealed, listen for the hometown crowd here in Washington state. This has been a legislative agenda item of the Democrats for several years. I do believe there will be a very heightened effort to repeal Washington states state preemption law come this legislative session. I think for all of you around the country, especially in states, they're not colored the correct way. You need to pay very, very careful attention. If you don't like what your state does to your gun laws, just wait until you let your local city or county get their hands on it. Listen, if you've got any other questions about this or anything else related to what's left of our Second Amendment rights, you guys should know how to get ahold of Washington gun law by now.
But if you don't, that's okay. That information's down there in the description box. Maybe you got an idea for a video we should be doing around here. Cool. Tell us all about it by clicking on that link right there. If all you want to do is subscribe to our monthly newsletter, the ability to do all of that is right down there in the description box. And then finally, and most importantly, let's everyone remember that part of being the lawful and responsible gun owner, like we talk about all the time here, is that local law is in every situation and how it applies to you in any instance that you may find yourself. Until next time, thanks for watching and stay safe.