cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/64919784

Since 2018, youth under 18 who are found in possession of a gun essentially get five strikes before serious penalties apply. They would have to be caught with a gun and charged five times before a judge could issue a detention of longer than a month. The first four charges might get a kid detention up to 30 days, community service, a fine, or nothing at all.

By contrast, adults arrested for illegal gun possession can expect harsher penalties, like years in prison or thousands of dollars in fines.

Some lawmakers and officials are pushing to change the rules for youth found with guns after the recent shootout at Seattle Center that left three dead and five injured. One of the teens involved, 19-year-old Junior Cee Niko Semo, who died at the scene, had previously been convicted at least once of illegally possessing a gun. That case, from 2024, was dismissed by a judge last year. A 15-year-old was arrested and charged in the shooting.

State Rep. David Hackney, a Democrat from Renton, wants to lower the threshold at which harsher penalties kick in for young people caught with guns. He said longer detention periods should apply at three convictions, instead of five.

“What we were finding out was that youngsters or young people that were carrying firearms, by the time they got to five [convictions], they would already have committed a serious offense and end up facing decades of prison time in adult court for murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault, or they were shot and killed themselves,” Hackney said.

In 2025, Hackney sponsored a bill that would have allowed a judge to impose more than a month of detention after the third gun conviction. But the bill failed without a hearing.

“My colleagues in the Legislature, they call juvenile justice reform basically making it harder and harder to incarcerate juveniles. They say that it traumatizes them. So does violent crime traumatize the community,” Hackney said.