There’s a reason that there’s a federal maximum three-day hold on background checks. When the background check system was put in place, gun rights advocates knew that a way to deter gun ownership was to just sit on the background checks for as long as possible, thus making it too much of a pain to buy a firearm. The three days allowed a certain amount of delay due to a number of factors, but the fact that the law specified that after three days, stores could assume nothing was found was meant to deter this sort of thing.

But not everyone saw it that way and there are rules in place in some states that bypass this.

As Cam reported earlier today, the Second Amendment Foundation is threatening to sue the Washington State Patrol over the suspension of its background check system since the first of the month. 

SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb described the situation as “simply unacceptable”, adding, “Washington State citizens have had their rights under the federal and state constitutions suspended, and we will take legal action if this isn’t solved immediately.”

The 2A group says it’s been inundated with calls from both would-be buyers and firearm retailers, who’ve been told that the state-run background check system has been offline because of “some type of network infiltration” at the Administrative Office of the Courts, which apparently involves the state’s Enterprise Data Repository that’s accessed by the SAFE system. 

That raises questions not only about the untenable delays gun buyers are facing, but the security of the information that’s a part of the Enterprise Data Repository. While there’s been no word of a data breach from state agencies, at least at this point, a “network infiltration” suggests that hackers may have gained access and/or control of the data collected by the state. 

Gottlieb says state law prevents the Washington State Patrol from using the federal NICS system as a replacement for the disabled SAFE system; a provision that’s left countless residents and retailers unable to complete their transactions. 

“As the saying goes, ‘A right delayed is a right denied,’ and the state has denied untold numbers of citizens their right to obtain firearms for almost two weeks,” Gottlieb pointed out. “This amounts to a mass deprivation of civil rights under color of law.” 

Now, if the system was hacked, that’s a problem. First, because a lot of personal information flows through any such system, including things like Social Security Numbers, so there needs to be concern for people’s data. I certainly want them to investigate and find out just what happened and if any such data was taken.

But the fact that the system has been down for 10 days is absolutely ridiculous. There’s no excuse for that. And there’s also no excuse for the complete lack of interest on the part of the news media in Washington. 

Time and time again, we’ve seen systems be attacked by hackers and be taken down. I can’t think of a single time that it’s taken 10 days to bring a system back up if there was a concerted effort to do so.

What it sounds like, though, is that the state of Washington just isn’t prioritizing getting the system back up. If people are forced to wait to buy their guns until it is, then that’s not just going to create a substantial backlog. See, if a right delayed is a right denied, as many argue–and I’m one of them–then this is a lot of people having their rights denied simply because the state can’t get the computer system back up and running.

So where’s the news coverage of this mass denial of a civil right? Spokane TV station KHQ ran a brief story last week noting the delays in processing concealed carry applications, but said nothing about it being a statewide issue or impacting gun sales. Tacoma’s News Tribune had a small story last week as well, but their coverage also ignored the fact that the outage has put a halt to firearm transfers. 

This is a major story impacting thousands of people, but you’d never know it by paying attention to the local media. 

There’s no excuse for that, anymore than there’s an excuse for stopping background checks for almost two weeks (and counting). Someone needs to light the proverbial fire under their proverbial butts, and that’s what the Second Amendment Foundation is doing here. Hopefully, this is enough, but if it’s not, well, that’s what the courts are for.