2A Attorney sends a sobering reminder: DUI season is here, and a conviction can cost you your firearms

Attorney William Kirk, president of Washington Gun Law, says the holidays bring more than parties and decorations.

They also bring a wave of DUI patrols.

In his recent video, Kirk warns that in Washington state, a drunk driving case can do more than cost you fines, a license suspension, or a night in jail.

It can quietly cost you your Second Amendment rights, even if you never get convicted of a felony.

Kirk frames it bluntly.

Yes, DUI is dangerous on its own.

But in Washington, he says, the way the legislature has written the law means a “routine” impaired-driving case can end with you legally disarmed for years without anyone in the system ever clearly warning you.

And the timing couldn’t be worse, he adds, because “’tis the season” when people drink more and police are actively hunting for impaired drivers.

How Washington Quietly Turned DUIs Into A Gun-Rights Landmine

Kirk explains that this problem sits at the intersection of two state laws.

The first is RCW 9.41.040, which defines who is disqualified from possessing a firearm and for how long.

The second is RCW 46.61.5055, which lists the penalties for DUI and related offenses.

According to Kirk, a 2023 bill – House Bill 1562 – quietly expanded RCW 9.41.040 so that it doesn’t just disarm felons.

It now sweeps in a long list of misdemeanors and gross misdemeanors, including certain DUI-related “prior offenses.”

Kirk says he warned viewers about HB 1562 when it was moving through the legislature, but admits “nobody cared about it” at the time because everyone was focused on the state’s assault weapon ban, House Bill 1240.

Now, he argues, people are finding out “the hard way” what that bill really did.

He notes that RCW 9.41.040 now covers “any prior offense as defined in RCW 46.61.5055 subsection (14)” if it’s committed within seven years of another qualifying prior offense.

The problem, Kirk says, is that “prior offense” under 46.61.5055(14) is defined incredibly broadly.

He says there are 17 different ways a DUI-type case can count as a prior – including reduced charges and alternative resolutions – and none of them have to be felonies.

Two DUIs, No Felony, No Jail – And Still Disarmed

To show how bad this can get, Kirk walks through what he calls a “horror story” scenario that he says has already happened to “dozens and dozens” of Washington drivers.

Imagine you were arrested for DUI five years ago.

Your lawyer negotiated it down to negligent driving.

No felony. No prison. You move on with your life.

Then, within seven years, you pick up a second DUI.

This time your lawyer gets it reduced to reckless driving.

Again, no felony, maybe no actual jail time, and both cases are handled in lower court as misdemeanors or gross misdemeanors.

In most people’s minds, that’s “bad, but not life-ruining.”

According to Kirk, that’s not how the law sees it anymore.

Because both of those resolved cases qualify as “prior offenses” under RCW 46.61.5055(14), and they occurred within seven years of each other, he says RCW 9.41.040 treats you as disqualified from possessing firearms.

You have never been convicted of a felony.

You have never done a long prison term.

But under Washington law, Kirk says, “you have been disarmed.”

The worst part in his view?

“At no point,” he says, “is anyone telling you about this.”

The Silent Disarmament: Nobody Tells You What You Just Lost

Kirk goes step by step through how this plays out in real life.

You’re arrested on your second DUI and you show up in court with your lawyer.

You know you’re in some trouble.

You might be focused on keeping your license or staying out of jail.

But, Kirk says, neither your attorney, nor the prosecutor, nor the judge tells you that your gun rights are on the chopping block.

You take the deal.

The judge accepts your plea.

You sign the paperwork.

Right there, Kirk says, “anything short of a dismissal on DUI number two” — when combined with your earlier prior offense – triggers your disqualification under RCW 9.41.040.

He stresses that the plea colloquy rarely, if ever, includes any clear warning about firearms.

A few weeks later, you meet with probation.

Again, according to Kirk, nobody says a word about your gun rights.

You leave court with stacks of paperwork from your lawyer.

You read the conditions, the fines, maybe the interlock requirements.

But there is nothing in there clearly stating, “By the way, you just lost your right to possess firearms.”

Kirk says he even lectured a room full of DUI defense attorneys about this a couple of years ago, telling them they were failing to advise clients about the gun-rights consequences.

“They all looked like they had seen a ghost,” he recalls.

From his perspective, they must not have taken it to heart, because he still gets calls from people who had no idea what they’d given up until it was far too late.

The Gun Store Denial – And The Knock On The Door

So how do most people find out they’re disarmed?

Kirk says it usually happens in one of the worst possible ways.

You go to a gun shop to buy a new firearm.

You already own a few guns and have never had a problem before.

You fill out your Form 4473, the standard federal background check form.

The store runs the check.

This time, you’re denied.

The clerk doesn’t know exactly why; they just know the system says “no.”

The sale is over.

For most customers, that’s just confusing and embarrassing. But Kirk explains that there’s more going on behind the scenes. When a denial comes back, the gun shop has to notify local law enforcement.

Once law enforcement gets that notice, they are required to run a trace on you.

During that trace, Kirk says, you now pop up as ineligible to possess firearms under RCW 9.41.040. And the trace also shows something else: the guns you already legally purchased and still own.

So now, from the state’s perspective, they have:

A person legally barred from possessing firearms

Who is still in possession of firearms

And who just attempted to buy another one

Kirk says at that point one of two things normally happens.

Sometimes, you get a “nasty letter” instructing you to surrender your guns. Other times, officers just show up at your home and confiscate them.

That, he says, is usually when his office gets the phone call. And by then, in most cases, “it’s too late.”

Getting Your Rights Back Can Take A Decade

Kirk then talks about the restoration side of this mess.

Many people in this position, he says, assume that because they don’t have a felony, they only have to wait five years and then petition to get their rights back.

But the statute isn’t that simple.

RCW 9.41.040 ties the waiting period to “five years from the end of jurisdiction” on the disqualifying case.

On a second-offense DUI, Kirk notes, the court can keep jurisdiction for up to five years.

That means the five-year clock for restoration doesn’t even start until that jurisdiction ends.

Five years of supervision plus five more years of waiting equals ten years before you can even begin the process of restoring your gun rights.

And what about trying to undo the plea deal?

Kirk says that’s very hard.

You can sometimes move to withdraw a plea, but that requires showing “manifest injustice,” a very high legal standard.

He calls the chances of actually getting a plea withdrawn “pretty remote” in most of these situations.

So for many people, once the second case is resolved, the damage is baked in.

A Harsh System – And A Simple Way To Avoid It

Kirk is clear that drunk driving is serious and dangerous.

He’s not making light of DUI.

But he is sharply critical of a system that, in his view, silently strips people of their Second Amendment rights over misdemeanor-level cases, with little to no warning from the courts or their own lawyers.

From a fairness standpoint, it’s hard to argue with that critique.

If losing your ability to own or even possess firearms for a decade is on the table, that’s the kind of consequence most people would want spelled out in big bold letters before they take any plea deal.

Instead, as Kirk describes it, the state has created a backdoor disarmament mechanism buried in cross-referenced statutes, invisible to the average person until the NICS system flags them.

At the same time, there’s a bigger point that Kirk keeps circling back to.

You don’t end up in this legal maze if you never get behind the wheel impaired in the first place.

He reminds viewers that he has spent “a large chunk” of his adult life in the criminal justice system and that there is one “almost surefire way” to avoid a DUI and everything that comes with it.

“Simply don’t drink and drive,” he says.

That advice is simple, maybe even obvious.

But given how harsh and long-lasting the gun-rights consequences can be in Washington, it may be the most important takeaway from Kirk’s warning.

For Washington gun owners – and probably for gun owners in other states with similar laws — the lesson is clear.

If you value your firearms and your freedom, the holiday season is not the time to take chances behind the wheel.

The cost of a bad decision may not just be a ticket or a night in jail.

As William Kirk lays out, it might be ten years without your Second Amendment rights — and a very rude surprise at the gun counter.