NRA's I-1639 lawsuit withdrawn, then refiled with new defendants

(AP) The NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation have withdrawn a federal lawsuit[1] challenging the constitutionality of Washington’s voter-approved I-1639. And they have filed an entirely new one in its place. Unaware of the new lawsuit, the Alliance for Gun Responsibility issued a statement Tuesday morning responding to the voluntary dismissal by the gun rights groups. Renee Hopkins, CEO of the Alliance for Gun Responsibility said: We have always been confident that Initiative 1639 would withstand this challenge. While this is not exactly the path we expected, the outcome is the same: Initiative 1639 remains the law of the land in Washington. A number of law enforcement officials have come forward recently claiming they will not enforce the initiative while this challenge makes its way through the courts. Now that there is no longer a pending lawsuit, we expect these sheriffs will stop playing politics with the safety of their communities and resume doing their job by enforcing the laws of our state and respecting the will of Washingtonians. Tallman Trask the Alliance for Gun Responsibility said the NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation had withdrawn the previous lawsuit without giving a reason. Though pleased, he acknowledged that the legal battle was not over. RELATED: Lynnwood gun store owner thinks she already has a 1639 loophole[2]RELATED: Second Amendment Foundation says there are problems with 1639[3] “The Second Amendment Foundation and the National Rifle Association and those folks always signaled that they had a multiple lawsuits planned that they built out; that they were going to be working and trying to challenge this in the courts more than once,” Trask said, suggesting that’s what was happening here. While the new lawsuit was filed last week, attorneys say they had not been able to serve the defendants yet because snow had shut down the court clerk’s office. So

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