'History, tradition' poor test for gun safety laws [View all]

By The Herald Editorial Board

Among several pieces of firearms safety legislation passed by the state Legislature in recent years — including a ban last year on the sale of assault-style semiautomatic firearms — was 2022’s ban on high-capacity magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

There is common sense and public support behind the restrictions on such magazines. A 2020 poll by Cascade PBS (formerly Crosscut)/Elway found that 65 percent of state registered voters polled supported regulating or banning high-capacity magazines. As well, a 2019 study found that states that did not ban large-capacity magazines suffered more than twice the number of high-fatality mass shootings compared with states with such restrictions. Those states saw fewer overall shootings and fewer deaths from mass shootings.

Yet, Monday, Cowlitz County Superior Court Judge Gary Bashor ruled — in Washington v. Gator’s Custom Guns — that the two-year-old law violated both the state constitution’s right to bear arms for self-defense and U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. The ruling briefly ended the ban until a state Supreme Court commissioner put the lower court ruling on hold while the state seeks review by full state Supreme Court.

The state law was challenged by a Kelso gun dealer, who faced enforcement by Attorney General Bob Ferguson after the shop continued to sell the magazines. Ferguson has defended the law as constitutional, pointing to past court cases upholding it and similar laws in other states on constitutional grounds.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/editorial-history-tradition-poor-test-for-gun-safety-laws/