In November, Initiative 1401, a measure prohibiting the sale, purchase or distribution of products from animals threatened with extinction due to poaching, will appear on Washington state ballots. Gun owners are objecting to this measure because it unfairly targets them while creating exemptions for musical instruments—and recently, NRA lobbyist Brian Judy speculated that this has as much to do with cronyism as it does hatred of guns.
At an NRA-sponsored event in Federal Way, Judy explained, “In Olympia, the Seattle Symphony was opposing the bill because a lot of their instruments … are made out of ivory.”
Judy said they reached out to Paul Allen, a big financial supporter of the Symphony, to express their displeasure. “So he wrote an exemption for his elitist buddies at the Seattle Symphony,” Judy said. Requests for a similar exemption for gun owners have repeatedly been ignored.
“Why are you singling us out?” Judy asked. “It’s all elitist hypocrisy.”
