In 2019 and 2022, Washington enacted some of the nation’s most comprehensive ghost gun legislation, regulating both unserialized and undetectable firearms and limiting the sale, manufacture, distribution, and possession, etc., of unserialized unfinished frames and receivers.¹

Washington’s law defines “Untraceable firearm” to generally mean any unserialized firearm manufactured after July 1, 2019. (The term applies to any firearm that is not an antique firearm and that cannot be traced by law enforcement by means of a serial number affixed to the firearm by a federal firearms manufacturer, importer, or dealer in compliance with federal law).²

Washington’s laws now make it generally unlawful to:

• Manufacture, cause to be manufactured, assemble, or cause to be assembled, an unserialized (“untraceable”) firearm.³
• Sell, offer to sell, transfer, or purchase an untraceable firearm.⁴
• Knowingly or recklessly allow, facilitate, aid, or abet the manufacture or assembly of an untraceable firearm by a person who is legally ineligible to possess a firearm under state or federal law (or who has signed a valid voluntary waiver of firearm rights ).⁵ (For the purposes of this law, a failure to conduct a background check on the purchaser is prima facie evidence of recklessness).⁶
• Beginning March 10, 2023, to knowingly or recklessly possess, transport, or receive an untraceable firearm.⁷

Washington’s law defines “Unfinished frame or receiver” to mean a frame or receiver⁸ that is partially complete,⁹ disassembled, or inoperable, that:

(i) Has reached a stage in manufacture where it may readily be completed, assembled, converted, or restored to a functional state;¹⁰ or
(ii) Is marketed or sold to the public to become or be used as the frame or receiver of a functional firearm once finished or completed, including without limitation products marketed or sold to the public as an 80 percent frame or receiver or unfinished frame or receiver.¹¹

Washington’s laws now make it generally unlawful to:

• Sell, offer to sell, transfer, or purchase an unfinished frame or receiver that has not been imprinted with a serial number issued by a federally licensed firearms importer, manufacturer, or dealer.¹²
• Beginning March 10, 2023, to knowingly or recklessly possess, transport, or receive an unfinished frame or receiver that has not been imprinted with a serial number issued by a federally licensed firearms importer, manufacturer, dealer, or other federal licensee authorized to imprint serial numbers.¹³
  
  (These prohibitions are subject to certain exceptions, including transfer of unfinished and unserialized frames or receivers to law enforcement or to federally licensed firearms importers, manufacturers, or dealers).¹⁴

Washington law defines “undetectable firearms” as: “Any firearm that is not as detectable as 3.7 ounces of 17-4 PH stainless steel by walk-through metal detectors or magnetometers commonly used at airports or any firearm where the barrel, the slide or cylinder, or the frame or receiver of the firearm would not generate an image that accurately depicts the shape of the part when examined by the types of X-ray machines commonly used at airports.¹⁵

Washington’s laws now make it generally unlawful to:

• Manufacture, own, buy, sell, loan, furnish, transport, or have in one’s possession or control, an “undetectable firearm” or any part designed and intended solely and exclusively for use in an undetectable firearm.¹⁶
• Assemble or repair any undetectable firearm.¹⁷
• Manufacture an untraceable firearm with intent to sell the firearm.¹⁸
• Knowingly or recklessly allow, facilitate, aid, or abet the manufacture or assembly of an undetectable firearm by a person who is legally ineligible to possess firearms under state or federal law (or who has signed a voluntary firearms waiver).¹⁹

Washington law also declares all illegally held or illegally possessed undetectable firearms to be contraband and states that it is the duty of all peace officers have a duty to seize illegal undetectable firearms wherever found.²⁰

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1. 2019 WA HB 1739 and 2021 WA HB 1805.[↩]
2. Rev. Code Wash. § 9.41.010(41).[↩]
3. Rev. Code Wash. § 9.41.326(1)(effective Jul. 1, 2022). See also: Rev. Code Wash. § 9.41.190(d) (separately prohibiting the same conduct with higher penalties if the person commits the violation with intent to sell the untraceable firearm).[↩]
4. Rev. Code Wash. § 9.41.326(3).[↩]
5. Rev. Code Wash. § 9.41.325.[↩]
6. Id.[↩]
7. Rev. Code Wash. § 9.41.326(2).[↩]
8. The term “Frame or receiver” is defined at Rev. Code Wash. § 9.41.010(16).[↩]
9. See Rev. Code Wash. § 9.41.010(40)(b)(ii).[↩]
10. See Rev. Code Wash. § 9.41.010(40)(b)(i)(defining the term “readily” for these purposes.[↩]
11. Rev. Code Wash. § 9.41.010(39).[↩]
12. Rev. Code Wash. § 9.41.327(2).[↩]
13. Rev. Code Wash. § 9.41.327(1), (3).[↩]
14. Rev. Code Wash. § 9.41.327(1), (2).[↩]
15. Rev. Code Wash. § 9.41.010(38).[↩]
16. Rev. Code Wash. § 9.41.190(1)(a).[↩]
17. Rev. Code Wash. § 9.41.190(1)(b).[↩]
18. Rev. Code Wash. § 9.41.190(1)(c).[↩]
19. Wash. Rev. Code Ann. § 9.41.325.[↩]
20. See Wash. Rev. Code Ann. § 9.41.220.[↩]