Rob McKenna ATTORNEY GENERAL OF WASHINGTON 1125 Washington Street SE + PO Box 40100 + Olympia WA 98504-0100 December 30, 2010 The Honorable Fred Finn State Representative, District 35 PO Box 40600 Olympia, WA 98504-0600 Dear Representative Finn: By letter previously acknowledged, you have requested an opinion on a question I have paraphrased as follows: Does RCW 9.41.250 prohibit shooting ranges and clubs from erecting noise-reduction structures, such as buffers, berms, down-range walls, or containments? BRIEF ANSWER No. RCW 9.41.250(1)(c) makes it a gross misdemeanor to use “any contrivance or device for suppressing the noise of any firearm.” This statute is directed at prohibiting dangerous weapons, and not at noise-reduction more generally. Understood in context, the quoted phrase does not prohibit efforts to reduce noise more generally. ANALYSIS You ask whether paragraph (1)(c) of RCW 9.41.250 prohibits shooting ranges or clubs from reducing noise by using noise-reduetion structures, such as buffers, berms, down-range walls, or containments. The plain language of the statute, considered in context, prohibits the use of silencers, or similar devices, on firearms, but not the type of noise-reduction structures about which you ask. RCW 9.41.250 provides: (1) Every person who: (@) Manufactures, sells, or disposes of or possesses any instrument or weapon of the kind usually known as slung shot, sand club, or metal knuckles, orATTORNEY GED NERAL OF WASHINGTON The Honorable Fred Finn December 30, 2010 Page 2 spring blade knife, or any knife the blade of which is automatically released by a spring mechanism or other mechanical device, or any knife having a blade which ‘opens, or falls, or is ejected into position by the force of gravity, or by an outward, downward, or centrifugal thrust or movement; (b) Furtively carries with intent to conceal any dagger, dirk, pistol, or other dangerous weapon; or (©) Uses any contrivance or device for suppressing the noise of any firearm, is guilty of a gross misdemeanor punishable under chapter 9.20 RCW. (2) Subsection (1)(a) of this section does not apply to: (a) The possession of a spring blade knife by a law enforcement officer while the officer: (i) Is on official duty; or (Gi) Is transporting the knife to or from the place where the knife is stored when the officer is not on official duty; or (b) The storage of a spring blade knife by a law enforcement officer. RCW 9.41.250. Interpretation of any statute begins with an examination of its plain language, giving that language its ordinary meaning. State v. Kintz, 169 Wn.2d 537, 547, 238 P.3d 470 (2010). A statute’s plain meaning should be “discerned from all that the Legislature has said in the statute and related statutes which disclose legislative intent about the provision in question.” Dep't of Ecology v. Campbell & Gwinn, LLC, 146 Wn.2d 1, 11, 43 P.3d 4 (2002). RCW 9.41.250 prohibits the use of “any contrivance or device for suppressing the noise of any firearm.” This language appears within the context of a criminal statute that broadly prohibits certain deadly weapons. The use of silencers on firearms is generally associated with criminal activity, allowing a criminal to fire a weapon with a reduced chance of being immediately discovered. See, e.g, State v. Brooks, 16 Wn. App. 535, 536, 557 P.2d 362 (1976) (describing a murder conducted using a firearm silenced with a potato); see also State v. Ryan, 192 Wash. 160, 163, 73 P.2d 735 (1937) (describing the murder of a deputy sheriff using a firearm equipped with a silencer). The prohibition of the use of a silencer appears within a list of prohibited acts that also includes prohibitions against the manufacture, sale, disposal, orATTORNEY GENERAL OF WASHINGTON The Honorable Fred Finn December 30, 2010 Page 3 possession of various deadly weapons and the furtive carrying of certain deadly weapons. ‘This context, as part of a criminal statute restricting deadly weapons, makes clear that RCW 9.41.250(1)(¢) prohibits the use of silencers as deadly weapons; nothing about the statute suggests a broader land-use restriction regarding shooting ranges or clubs. The criminal nature of the statute also supports this conclusion. If a statute defining a crime is ambiguous, then the rule of lenity requires courts to construe the ambiguity in favor of the criminal defendant, absent legislative intent to the contrary. State v. Hirschfelder, Wn.2d __, 242 P.3d 876, 881 (2010), As indicated, I read RCW 9.41.250 as being unambiguously limited to prohibiting the use of silencers and similar devices within the context of prohibiting deadly weapons. Even if a court were inclined to read the phrase, “any contrivance or device” as potentially ambiguous, then the rule of lenity would counsel in favor of a more narrow construction that avoids making it a crime for a shooting range or club to try to reduce noise for its neighbors. It seems unlikely that the legislature would have intended to criminalize such actions. T hope the foregoing information will prove useful. This is an informal opinion and will not be published as an official Attorney General Opinion. Sincerely, SBT Cae JEFFREY T. EVEN Deputy Solicitor General (360) 586-0728 wros