State supreme court upholds ban on high-capacity gun magazines

The Washington state Supreme Court has upheld a state law that bans the sale or transfer of gun ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.

In a 7-2 ruling issued Thursday, the court found that the law does not violate the state or federal constitutional right to bear arms. The court found that the magazines are not classified as arms, and that the right to purchase the magazines is not “an ancillary right necessary to the realization of the core right to possess a firearm in self-defense.”

The law does not prohibit the possession of high-capacity magazines possessed at the time of its passage, but instead prevents the sale, transfer or import of new magazines.

“By restricting only magazines of a capacity greater than 10, the statute effectively regulates the maximum capacity of magazines, leaving the weapon fully functional for its intended purpose. Thus, we are not convinced that the restriction here renders the right to bear arms in self-defense meaningless,” Justice Charles Johnson wrote in the opinion. “Indeed, we can safely say that individuals are still able to exercise the core right to bear arms when they are limited to purchasing magazines with a capacity of 10 or fewer.”

In a dissent, Gordon McCloud wrote that “Millions of law-abiding people have chosen semiautomatic firearms as the primary tool for lawful purposes such as self-defense in the home.”

“Millions of people have chosen to feed ammunition into those commonly used firearms with magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds,” McCloud wrote. “It necessarily follows that the Second Amendment protects the arms-bearing conduct at issue here, that is, keeping and bearing operable semiautomatic firearms with commonly used magazines for self-defense and other lawful purposes – including in the home.”

Adopted by the Washington legislature in 2022, the law was challenged by Gator’s Custom Guns, a Kelso-based gun store that contended the law was unconstitutional. A Cowlitz County Superior Court judge ruled in the store’s favor last June, a ruling that then-Attorney General Bob Ferguson appealed to the state Supreme Court.

In a social media post Thursday, current Attorney General Nick Brown said the decision is “right on the law and will save lives.”

“Large capacity magazines are used in the overwhelming majority of mass shootings, and reducing the toll of these senseless killings is vitally important,” Brown wrote. “I’m proud of my Office’s work defending our state law banning the sale of these dangerous items.”

In a video posted Thursday afternoon, attorney and former Washington Attorney General Candidate Pete Serrano, who represented Gator’s guns in the case, said they would likely file an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I think this case has the tentacles the Supreme Court’s been looking for,” Serrano said.