OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) – About 1,000 gun-rights advocates, many openly carrying rifles and handguns, rallied Saturday outside the Capitol to protest a new expanded gun background check law in Washington state.
Organizers of the “I Will Not Comply” rally promised to exchange and sell firearms without conducting background checks during the daylong rally in opposition to the state’s voter-approved universal background check law.
“We’re going to stand up for our rights,” rally organizer Gavin Seim said. “Our rights are not up for negotiation.”
Initiative 594 passed with 59 percent of the vote last month. Geoff Potter, who served as a spokesman for the pro-initiative campaign, said that the rally was “a very loud, but very, very narrow and unrepresentative view of what the people of Washington have clearly demonstrated they want on background checks and gun laws.”
(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
