Owner of lost/stolen gun may be in deep doo-doo after WA shooting

Holy moly, I read through the summary of the law and it’s one of the most oppressive things I’ve ever seen. Everything is salted with comments about “assault rifles“ which demonstrates the mindset of the drafters.

Doc, “reasonable practitioner“ is the medical standard and I think the kinds of laws we are talking about here with the “knew or should have known” will be judged along the lines of a negligence claim. The standard jury instruction In most states defines negligence as doing something a reasonably prudent person would not do or failing to do something that a reasonably prudent person would do under the circumstances.
I can see the wrong jury saying that if someone owned something as dangerous as a gun, they should check on it every few days to make sure it is secure.

Many states do have the safe storage provision in their laws. Florida has one that provides liability if you negligently store a firearm and a minor gets it and causes harm. I represented a police officer who was charged under the statute when his daughter crawled under the bed and found an old POS revolver, drove to another jurisdiction and killed herself. A lot of gun safety is common sense. I was consulted in the very early 80s by a lawyer about his case against the NRA. Kids broke into NRA headquarters, got a closet open and took firearms and ammo. One of them shot the other. A 6 foot tall NRA exhibit in the trial was “Blooey” The gun safety dog. It was a standing dachshund with a barrel sticking out of his head and it was saying “remember, NEVER store guns and ammunition in the same location” The NRA had used it in gun safety presentations to the public, they just didn’t follow their own advice.

Adjutant said:

Good point! There are only 2 guns that I own that I would realize were missing inside of 5 days
My CC, and my bedside. I would know they are missing inside of 12 hours at the longest. All the others could be missing for up to 3 weeks, before I might realize they are missing

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Therein lies one of the big problems with laws like this.
It relies on the jury to determine the 'reasonable person' standard, and whether or not you met that standard given your circumstances.
It's reasonable for my neighbor to keep his shotgun locked up and out of reach of his two young kids. It's not nearly as reasonable for me to take the same level of caution when no such kids exist in my house. I lock my door every morning when I leave. That should be the end of it. If somebody besides me gets their hands on one of the pistols I keep out, they broke the law getting to it in the first place.
I basically spend all my time at a desk, and my desk is right next to my safe. I will know if the safe has been broken into or not within 10 hours of it happening. Somebody else may have their safe in a garage, or maybe their guns are in storage, and they don't check on them for months at a time.

Unironically, we need to bring back tarring and feathering. Every once in a while, if politicians and lawmakers were subjected to the consequences of the gross intrusions on the lives of the people they 'serve,' they would do so far less.