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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2, 2019
Washington bans anyone under
21 from buying assault rifl es
By MARTHA BELLISLE
Associated Press
SEATTLE — Washing-
ton on Tuesday joined a
handful of other states that
ban anyone under 21 from
buying a semi-automatic
assault rifl e after voters
passed a sweeping fi rearms
measure in November that
has drawn a court challenge
from gun-rights advocates.
The ballot initiative
seeks to curb gun violence
by toughening background
checks for people buying
assault rifl es, increasing the
age limit to buy those fi re-
arms and requiring the safe
storage of all guns. Only the
age-limit portion of the mea-
sure went into effect Tues-
day; the rest becomes law on
July 1.
Kristen Ellingboe, a
spokeswoman for the Wash-
ington Alliance for Gun
Responsibility, said the ini-
tiative was one of the most
comprehensive gun-violence
prevention measures to pass
in the United States. It spe-
cifi cally targeted semi-au-
tomatic assault rifl es in
response to mass shootings
across the country, she said.
“We’ve seen that assault
rifl es are the weapon of
choice for mass shootings,
and when they’re used,
more people are killed and
injured,” Ellingboe said.
Fifty-nine percent of
Washington voters approved
Initiative 1639 in November.
“We’ve seen time and
again that Washington voters
want action to prevent gun
violence in our state,” Elling-
boe said. “They showed that
again by supporting 1639 by
a wide margin.”
Opponents have sued to
block it.
“Starting today, young
adults between the ages of
18 to 20 will have their rights
to purchase semi-automatic
rifl es stripped away,” said
Dave Workman, a spokes-
man for the Bellevue,
Washington-based Second
AP Photo/Elaine Thompson
Semi-automatic rifl es at a gun shop in Lynnwood, Wash.
Amendment Foundation.
The federal lawsuit says
the measure violates the
Second and 14th amend-
ments of the Constitu-
tion as well as gun sellers’
rights under the Commerce
Clause. Plaintiffs in the law-
suit are fi rearms dealers in
Spokane and Vancouver,
a 19-year-old competitive
shooter, a 19-year-old in the
Army Reserves, a 20-year-
old recreational shooter, the
Second Amendment Foun-
dation and the National Rifl e
Association.
Washington
Attorney
General Bob Ferguson said
he “looks forward to rep-
resenting the people of the
state of Washington in court
against the NRA.”
“The gun lobby is trying
to thwart the will of nearly
60 percent of Washingtonian
voters who supported com-
mon sense gun reform in our
state,” he said in an email.
The full measure, when
it goes into effect later this
year, will expand the back-
ground check process to
ensure that vetting for rifl e
purchases is the same as for
buying pistols.
Now, people in Wash-
ington who buy long guns
are run through the FBI’s
National Instant Criminal
Background Check Sys-
tem, or NICS. Background
checks for handgun sales are
done by local law enforce-
ment agencies that can
access NICS as well as more
detailed records that might
expose mental health issues
or harder-to-fi nd criminal
records. And you must be 21
to purchase a pistol.
“This will update Wash-
ington state law so the
requirements to purchase
semi-automatic
assault
rifl es will match handguns,”
Ellingboe said.
In most states, includ-
ing over the border in Idaho
and Oregon, you must be
18 to buy an assault rifl e.
But Republican-dominant
Florida passed a law after a
school shooting to increase
the age limit to 21.
Nikolas Cruz was 18
when he legally bought the
assault rifl e he used to kill
17 people at the Marjory
Stoneman Douglas High
School in Parkland, Florida,
last February.
Four other states —
Hawaii, Illinois, Vermont
and New York — also pro-
hibit anyone under 21 from
buying all fi rearms.
Workman, of the Second
Amendment
Foundation,
says Washington’s mea-
sure will take away fi rearms
from law-abiding residents
who can easily pass multi-
ple background checks. It
will impair public safety and
embolden criminals while
placing restrictions on peo-
ple who already legally own
semi-automatic rifl es, he
said.
1/9/19
1/9/19
1/9/19
1/9/19
‘Leopard of the Kootenai’ makes rebound
Burbot are fi nally
back on the menu
1/9/19
By NATHANAEL
MASSEY
The Spokesman-Review
SPOKANE, Wash. — In
the early 2000s, the world’s
only freshwater cod was all
but gone from the waters of
the Kootenai River in north
Idaho and British Colum-
bia. Once counted in the
thousands, regional popula-
tions of burbot — sometimes
known as ling cod — had
dropped to a mere 50.
Today, that number is
closer to 50,000.
The fi sh’s spectacular
rebound stems from a col-
laborative restoration effort
by fi sheries, communities,
academics and state offi -
cials, along with the Koo-
tenai Tribe of Idaho and the
Bonneville Power Adminis-
tration. As a result, a decade
and a half after facing extinc-
tion, “The Leopards of the
Kootenai” are back on the
menu.
With regional populations
hovering between 40,000
and 50,000 in the Kootenai,
the Idaho Fish and Game
Commission
announced
in December that a bur-
bot fi shing season had been
approved as part of its fi sh-
ing rules for 2019-2021.
It’s the fi rst time since 1992
that fi shing for burbot has
been greenlighted by state
offi cials.
In appearance, burbots
look a bit like a catfi sh, a bit
like an eel, with a wide mouth
and specked hide — the last
accounting for their “Leop-
ard” nickname. They’re
predatory, swallowing fi sh
nearly half their size and,
when food is scarce, each
other. “They’re a pit bull of a
fi sh,” a former hatchery tech-
nician told a Spokesman-Re-
view reporter in 2014. Adults
typically reach lengths of 16
to 20 inches.
The fi shing ban was put
in place in the early 1990s
to protect declining popu-
Idaho Fish and Game
Burbot have made a remarkable recovery.
lations, but it was environ-
mental factors — many of
them resulting from the con-
struction of the Libby Dam
in the 1970s — that put the
burbot’s long-term success
in jeopardy, according to an
Idaho Fish and Game news
release from 2004.
The dam trapped nutri-
ents and drastically increased
river fl ow, and warmer
waters hindered the species’
spawning, which takes place
in freezing winter waters.
Other iconic Koote-
nai River species, includ-
ing white sturgeon, saw their
populations drop during
the same period as cas-
cade effects from the dam
spread throughout the river’s
ecosystem.
The effect of the dam was
shattering.
Previously, the burbot
fi shery at the junction of the
Kootenai River and the west
arm of Kootenay Lake, Brit-
ish Columbia, had been one
of the most robust in the
world, rivaling even that of
the famed Moosehead Lake
of Maine. A decade in, and
populations were declining
precipitously; 30 years on,
the Kootenai burbot was all
but gone.
In 2014, the Kootenai
Tribe of Idaho dedicated a
new, $15 million hatchery
devoted to the restoration
of both burbot and white
sturgeon.
Drawing from geneti-
cally-related burbot stock
from Moyie Lake in Brit-
ish Columbia and employing
hatchery practices developed
with the aid of University
of Idaho researchers, the
35,000-square-foot hatchery
aimed to introduce 125,000
burbots into the Kootenai
each year.
Annual population mon-
itoring was conducted by
Idaho Fish and Game biol-
ogists, along with British
Columbia and Montana.
Funding for the hatchery
was provided in large part
by the Bonneville Power
Administration — which
manages Libby Dam along
with the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers — as part of its
effort to mitigate the dams
impacts.
Sometimes derided as
“poor man’s lobster,” bur-
bot meat — light, white and
somewhat sweet — is never-
theless appreciated by many
anglers and historically
has been an important food
source for tribes that fi shed
the Kootenai River.
Speaking to The Spokes-
man-Review in 2014, Koo-
tenai Tribe of Idaho Fish and
Wildlife Director Sue Ire-
land pointed to its lasting
signifi cance.
“The sturgeon and the
burbot both are so unique,”
she said.
“They’re important cul-
turally to the tribe. They’re
important socially to the
community. And they’re
important to the river.”
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