Newhouse Aims to Designate Firearms Industry as ‘Essential’

Congressman Dan Newhouse was among more than a dozen fellow representatives to co-sponsor the Second Amendment is Essential Act.

The Sunnyside Republican said the legislation would categorize the firearms industry as a critical infrastructure sector and those it employs as critical infrastructure workers.

"Some governors, including our own (Jay Inslee), because of the health crisis that we were facing made determinations of some of the categories of workers that were deemed essential. Those that are engaged in the industry pertaining to the 2nd Amendment, ammo and firearms, were not categorized as essential."

The USA Patriot Act defined critical infrastructure as “systems and assets, whether physical or virtual, so vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters.”

In 2020, gun sales increased by 64% in the United States.

The full legislation can be found here.