Bass v. City of Edmonds (Majority)
Annotate this CaseThe issue this appeal presented for the Washington Supreme Court’s review centered on whether a city ordinance requiring guns be safely kept and out of unauthorized hands, was preempted by state law. After robust debate following a mass shooting at the nearby Marysville Pilchuck High School, the Edmonds City Council adopted an ordinance requiring residents to safely store their firearms when not in use. At around the same time, Washington voters enacted Initiative 1639, which, among many other things, criminalized unsafe storage of firearms but in more limited circumstances than Edmonds’ ordinance. The initiative specifically did not “mandate[] how or where a firearm must be stored.” The Supreme Court determined the local ordinance was indeed preempted by the state law.
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