Several gun rights groups have filed a lawsuit challenging Washington state’s new ban on sales of so-called high-capacity ammunition magazines for rifles and handguns, which the law prohibiting their distribution defines as ones that hold more than 10 rounds.
“The State of Washington has criminalized one of the most common and important means by which its citizens can exercise their fundamental right of self-defense,” the groups wrote in the complaint.
The Epoch Times has reached out to Ferguson’s media representative with a request for comment on the suit.
The law bans manufacturing, importing, distributing, selling, or offering for sale magazines that can hold more than ten rounds of ammunition.
The gun-rights groups want the law overturned.
“We’re asking the court to declare Washington’s ban on original capacity magazines to be unconstitutional under the Second and Fourteenth amendments,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb.
“We want an injunction against the state because this ban criminalizes something that is common in a majority of states, and also leaves law-abiding Washington citizens more vulnerable to attack by ruthless criminals,” he added.
Gottlieb disputes the definition of a high-capacity magazine as one that holds more than ten rounds of ammo.
“Many of the most popular handguns and modern semiautomatic rifles come standard with magazines that hold more than ten rounds,” Gottlieb said, adding that “there is no reliable proof that restrictions on new manufacturing or sales of such magazines will reduce violent crime.”
He added that he believes SB 5078 “unfairly and arbitrarily penalizes honest citizens for crimes they didn’t commit, in the hopes of preventing crimes they wouldn’t dream of committing.”
It comes as President Joe Biden and Democrats are positioning gun control as a key issue ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
Inslee, who signed Washington state’s high-capacity magazine ban into law on March 23, shared Biden’s tweet on June 3, adding his own pro-gun control comment.