Thousands of gun sales are on hold in Washington state after a week-long court system shutdown

Thousands of arms sales have been suspended Washington State due to a failure of the court’s computer system, which prevents the completion of the checks. Two weeks after the blackout, Second Amendment advocates are threatening to sue.

“In my 10 years of business … this is unprecedented for me at any level, state or federal,” said Daniel Mitchell, owner of a gun store in Vancouver. Fox News Digital. “We’ve never seen a shutdown that lasted this long.”

The Washington State Administrative Office of the Courts announced on November 4 that the state’s court network had been shut down after “unauthorized activity” was detected.

Local courts had to adjust the deadlines for filing cases, court proceedings and other legal actions. And the Washington State Patrol (WSP) has failed to perform any mandatory background checks on firearm sales since November 1st.

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According to WSP, the agency typically processes between 400 and 1,000 inspections per day.

“This is upsetting to everyone, including us,” WSP spokesman Chris Loftis said in an email to Fox News Digital on Friday. “Unfortunately, there are no workarounds or workarounds in this situation. Good people are working around the clock to get the system up and running. Patience is our only way out.”

But Mitchell et al Second Amendment supporters say that’s not good enough.

“For nearly two weeks, the state has denied countless citizens their right to own firearms,” ​​said Alan M. Gottlieb, executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF). statement. “This means mass deprivation of civil rights under color of law.”

SAF is threatening to sue if the state doesn’t restore the system immediately.

Court and WSP officials hope to have the system back up and running next week. Loftis told Fox News Digital that when that happens, the State Patrol will try to get the inspection done quickly, but acknowledged that the growing backlog could slow things down.

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Mitchell argued that the government would never succeed in suspending people’s freedom of speech, religion or privacy for two weeks.

“You are talking about tyranny. This is its limit,” he said. “The government just shuts down and says, ‘Now you’re in our time.’ But the government works for us, we do not work for them.”

Gun dealers didn’t realize there was a problem until days after the failure, Mitchell said. That’s because of a state law that went into effect this year mandating a 10-day waiting period on the sale of weapons. But now those 10 days have passed for many customers, which has caused frustration.

Democratic lawmakers also passed legislation requiring tougher background checks that took effect this year, Mitchell said. Previously, firearms dealers used the FBI’s federal database to process checks. WSP has now been given the task.

“Right now we have 15 days or potentially 15,000 checks in the queue,” Mitchell said.

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If inspections don’t start happening again soon, Mitchell said customers can expect another hurdle.

“Federal documents that customers fill out and are required for all firearm purchases are valid for 30 days,” he said. “And then you have to start the whole process over.”

State officials have released little information about the initial “unauthorized activity” that caused the court’s network to crash.