Our firm advocates for the Second Amendment and strict compliance with Washington’s firearms preemption statute whenever an opportunity presents itself. When attorneys for various municipalities around Washington State issued legal opinions that RCW 9.41.290 “only applied to the regulation of firearms themselves” and excluded regulations that only secondarily affect firearms, many law firms and the Second Amendment Foundation took action. The Washington State Attorney General’s Office had already issued a legal opinion that thoroughly rebuts such opinions based on Cherry v Metro and another case that dealt with certain narrow issues applied to a venue for a gun show leased from the City of Sequim, Washington.
We wrote a letter to the City of Federal Way objecting to three municipal ordinances that violated the state firearms preemption law and the City Council amended the municipal code in order to remove the illegal restrictions on where armed citizens could go in Federal Way. The Federal Way Municipal Code has been brought into compliance with state law.
We have also written letters putting other jurisdictions on notice of imminent legal action. In some cases we have handled, municipalities have settled out of court with significant amounts of money for harassing and detaining armed citizens in public places.
We also handle employment discrimination, including state and federal employment cases, and other civil rights matters along with criminal defense representation.
The Firearms Lawyer newspaper column that used to appear in the Federal Way Mirror strongly advocated that the best defense for the citizens of Washington state is to limit the number of “gun free” zones that are available to criminals, terrorists or other deranged individuals seeking publicity by mass shootings. Almost all such shootings have occurred in areas, like schools, where honest citizens have been rendered defenseless by laws or policies that are based on misinformation about public safety and the right to keep and bear arms.
The Law Office of Mark Knapp PLLC 