Recently I completed a pistol transfer and sale. NICS check came back good, all the T's crossed, I's are dotted, etc. Gentleman buying the pistol had no CPL, so we settle in to wait.

Filled out the wonderful WA State Pistol Transfer Application and noted in RCW 9.41.110(9)(b) "One copy shall within six hour be sent by certified mail to the chief of police of the municipality or the sheriff of the county of which the purchaser is a resident;..."

The RCW is not sensible when speaking to a requirement to send this form via certified mail within 6 hrs. What about those whose post office is closed with no automated kiosk? Why 6 hours? If no one is there at the PD to receive it, why would it matter if I sent it within 6 hours or 16 hours? Who gives a flip if I sent it at 4pm on Saturday on a holiday weekend? The damned thing won't be opened until Tuesday morning at best.

What is the definition of certified? Why can I not meet the requirement by sending an email?

The idiots in charge of this state make me wonder what they are smoking at the capital building.

It's an ancient law that has probably never been revisited since whenever it was passed. I think it's just faxed.

True, local Pony Express was faster.

And this is why you've never seen any of these points of contention litigated.

Agreed, but following that logic means that rather than obey the law as written, we research the number of prosecutions and decide which laws to obey. Perhaps some do this already, but its not for me.

"It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?"

-James Madison, 1788, Independent Journal (The Federalist No. 62)

PERFECT!

You may have already put more effort into it than the receiving LE agency will. I've been told -- by a person who is in a position to know -- that some agencies take those little forms out of the envelopes and put them straight into the shred bin.

Well, that is marvelous to hear, albeit not surprising.

Don't nit-pick. Those "hours", just like "days" that are referred to in the laws are "business hours or business days".

For example, the IRS requires that an employer remit all monies withheld from paychecks by the 15th of the month following (at least a business the size of ours). If the 15'th falls on a weekend or holiday the payment is due the first day after. Ditto for Sales Tax remittances to the State.

Business days and business hours.


FWIW, the only time this will ever be an issue is if the purchaser goes out and commits a crime between the statutory time of notice and time the CLEO has to reject the transfer.

Brilliant, except they are denying a citizen due process of law, in my opinion. Sure, the handgun gets transferred eventually (in 10 days), but if they performed their due
diligence, the buyer could have their handgun in as little as 3 days. And I say 3 days because that was my experience, pre- I 594.

http://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9.41.092

They can keep passing their laws. They more they pass the less inclined I am to care.

Unfortunately, the more likely you becoming an unwitting felon, when it suits their agenda.

“If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.” – Thomas Jefferson

NAGA the Madison quote.