If you go by the number of lawsuits in the news these days, you’d think they were as cheap as the sale rack at a Men’s Warehouse.

They’re not.

Unless, of course, you’re one of the feckless ideologues in government service that seem to only be motivated by the passage of eyewash legislation.

As you saw demonstrated most recently, Washington State and its legislature have more than a few of these folks. Unfortunately, they’re accompanied by a governor more than willing to go along with what is really nothing more than ideological posturing.

I’m referencing the passage -and Governor Jay Inslee’s signing of HB1240. Another new law that bans the sale of modern sporting rifles, along with many other firearms.

Doesn’t seem to bother the governor nor the legislature that their legislation has little chance of surviving a legal challenge. Much less the two already filed. The challenges came from the Second Amendment Foundation and the National Shooting Sports Foundation shortly after Inslee’s signing HB1240 into law.

The reasoning behind the challenges? “The usual suspects” - violation of both the Second and Fourteenth Amendments.

Essentially the same reasoning the Second Amendment Foundation used against Illinois to win a preliminary injunction against that state’s ban on rifles and certain magazines. You can read the details on that latest win in today’s news section.

Those incursions -and their subsequent reversals - don’t appear to concern the legislators who insist on passing them. Primarily, I believe, because the ultimate intent of this legislation has already been achieved. It’s not governance. Introducing the bill and having it affirmed -and signed into “law” is all they’re after, because it’s nothing more than political signaling.

They’re showing their liberal constituencies they’re solidly against guns. The grand gesture’s far more important than addressing any of the myriad of reasons average people feel they need guns.

Addressing those concerns would require recognizing some inconvenient truths about why people don’t feel safe. You know, the crime and mental health issues that are poo-poohed in the mainstream as “diversionary” from “the gun problem.”

In a conversation with the Second Amendment Foundation’s Alan Gottlieb (which you can read in its entirety in the latest installment of QA Outdoors) I was given an eye-opening example of just how expensive it is to defeat these illegal intrusions on our personal rights.

The costs of contesting legislation in the courts starts at approximately $250,000. That’s for a case defeated in the lower courts and not subsequently appealed. Those are generally reserved for those local jurisdictional laws in municipalities that lack the tax base to keep the meter running.

If, however the case is appealed and moves into the appellate court system, you can bank on it taking another $250,000 to fight.

When/if it is then appealed and goes all the way to the United States Supreme Court, you’re talking a legal bill of approximately $750,000.

At first glance, those are eye-popping numbers. But those, Gottlieb told me, were based on “discounted” legal rates. The costs would easily run into seven-figures otherwise.

If you’re dependent on individual supporters and contributions, that is not an insignificant amount of money.

If you’re a legislator, it’s immaterial. After all, you’re playing with someone else’s money.

There’s one of the primary reasons liberally inclined legislatures aren’t the least bit reluctant to pass controversial legislation. In fact, some observers tell me they believe idealogical legislators use bad legislation as one tactic to bleed resources from their opponents.

At one time, I would have thought that overly cynical. Today, having watched them-repeatedly-ignore Supreme Court rulings that disagree with their politics, I’m not nearly so certain that’s a cynical position.

Having had considerable experience dealing with groups ostensibly worried about “environmental justice” or “animal rights” - shorthand for outlawing the things they dislike, I know the ability these groups possess to turn well-meaning legislation into a private bank.

Several years ago, Congress passed legislation designed to provide funding to help give everyone access to the legal system. The “environmental” movement quickly seized on it as a method to sue the government -then collect funding -from that same government, to pay for their suits.

That’s where they share something in common with idealogical legislatures.

Both groups know the key to their survival is playing with someone else’s money. Your money. You know, “your tax dollars at work”.

It’s a never-ending trough neither ever tires of bellying up to, even as infrastructure crumbles, crime rises, inflation grows and the standard of living drops -for others. They don’t suffer, because they have tapped into a never-ending supply of money.

Our money.

— Jim Shepherd