H-1688              _______________________________________________

                                                   HOUSE BILL NO. 2143

                        _______________________________________________

State of Washington                               51st Legislature                              1989 Regular Session

By Representatives Anderson, Wineberry and Nelson

Read first time 2/24/89 and referred to Committee on Judiciary.

AN ACT Relating to adding semiautomatic weapons to the definition of machine gun; and amending RCW 9.41.200.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

        Sec. 1.  Section 2, chapter 64, Laws of 1933 and RCW 9.41.200 are each amended to read as follows:

          For the purpose of RCW 9.41.190 through 9.41.220 a machine gun is defined as:

(1) Any firearm or weapon known as a machine gun, mechanical rifle, submachine gun, and/or any other weapon, mechanism, or instrument not requiring that the trigger be pressed for each shot and having a reservoir clip, disc, drum, belt, or other separable mechanical device for storing, carrying, or supplying ammunition which can be loaded into such weapon, mechanism, or instrument, and fired therefrom at the rate of five or more shots per second; or

(2) Any firearm other than a short firearm or pistol as defined in RCW 9.41.010 which is designed or redesigned to fire centerfire ammunition and which meets one of the following conditions:

(a) The firearm is automatically fed after each discharge from or by means of a clip, disc, drum, belt, or other separable mechanical device having a capacity greater than nine cartridges; or

(b) The firearm is automatically fed after each discharge from a self-contained magazine within the firearm that holds more than nine cartridges.