Thousands of gun sales on hold in Washington state amid weeks-long court system outage

The Washington State Administrative Office of the Courts announced on November 4 that the state's courts network was taken offline after detecting "unauthorized activity."

Local courts have had to adjust timelines for case filings, trials and other legal actions. And the Washington State Patrol (WSP) has not been able to complete any mandatory background checks on firearms sales since Nov. 1.

The agency typically processes between 400 and 1,000 background checks a day, according to WSP.

"This is frustrating for everyone, us included," WSP spokesperson Chris Loftis told Fox News Digital in an email Friday. "Unfortunately, in this situation, there are no work-arounds or detours. Good people are working around the clock to get the system fixed, safe to use, and up and going. Patience is really our only option."

SAF is threatening to sue if the state doesn't get the system back up and running promptly.

Courts officials and WSP hope the system will be back online next week. Loftis told Fox News Digital the state patrol will try to process background checks quickly when that happens, but acknowledged a growing backlog could slow things down.

Mitchell argued the government would never get away with suspending people's freedom of speech, religion or privacy rights for two weeks, he said.

"You talk about tyranny. This is the border of it," he said. "The government just shuts down and says, 'You're on our time now.' But the government works for us. We don't work for them."

Democratic lawmakers also passed a law requiring tougher background checks that took effect this year, Mitchell said. Previously, firearms dealers used the FBI's federal database to process checks. Now, WSP has been given that task.

"We're now at 15 days or potentially 15,000 background checks in the queue," Mitchell said. 

If checks don't start going through again soon, Mitchell said customers can expect another hurdle. 

"The federal paperwork that customers fill out that's required for all firearms purchases, those time out at 30 days," he said. "And then you have to start the whole process over."

State officials have released little information about the initial "unauthorized activity" that prompted the court network outage.