There are some things upon which one can depend, among them death, taxes and never-ending Democrat attempts to disarm law-abiding Americans. To date, those attempts have been largely unsuccessful, though there have been exceptions like the Clinton “Assault Weapon” ban of 1994-2004. That particular ban, in many respects the high point of anti-liberty/gun efforts from 1994 until today, sunset in 2004. By then, it was more than apparent the ban had no effect whatever on crime. Even Fact Check.org grudgingly admitted the truth. However, the ban did remove many Democrats from Congress, and those that remained abandoned any effort to renew the ban.
That didn’t stop Joe Biden’s handlers from using Joe to claim the ban was a stunning success, and a new and improved ban ought to happen. Even the Democrat media, including Fact Check.org, was forced to admit the Clinton ban was a bust, Biden was lying about that and other gun issues and Biden’s Handler’s efforts almost entirely failed.
Since then, a wide variety of attempts to impede American’s exercise of the Second Amendment have been tried:
*Bans on bullets.
*Limits on the number of bullets that can be purchased.
*Magazine limit restrictions.
*Bans on all manner of accessories like braces and bump stocks.
*Bans on rifle pistol grips.
*ruinous taxes on ammunition and guns.
*Expensive and unnecessary training requirements enacted without completed training programs and requirements and insufficient numbers of instructors.
*In-home storage requirements rendering guns useless in emergencies.
*Expensive permits to buy, own or carry guns.
*Slow walking or entirely denying permits.
*Forcing Federal Firearm Licensees out of business.
Virtually all such malicious infringement attempts are blatantly and explicitly unconstitutional under the Supreme Court’s Heller and Bruen decisions. But the blue cities and states enacting them don’t care. They know it could take years for their laws to be struck down, and in the meantime, they get to virtue signal and even bankrupt and imprison lawful gun owners made instant felons by their laws. They also get to waste millions in taxes to defend laws they know are unconstitutional paid by the very law-abiding people they’re trying to harass.
As I recently wrote in Colorado goin’ down, the Democrat-dominated Colorado legislature recently all but outlawed semiautomatic firearms, and enacted a variety of bizarre and blatantly unconstitutional additional infringements that will surely be eventually struck down. But Colorado isn’t the only state vying with California for top honors in anti-liberty/gun lunacy. Washington state is now solidly in the running:
The state Supreme Court in Washington is the latest judicial body to conclude that bans on “large capacity” magazines are perfectly compatible with the Second Amendment under the dubious theory that magazines aren’t “arms” at all, merely accessories to firearms that can be regulated without issue.
Thus far, the ban extends to magazines capable of holding 11 or more rounds, so-called “high-capacity magazines,” but the precedent established allows banning every magazine of any capacity. If they’re not part of guns, why not?
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Graphic: Glock 19, Author
Technically, detachable magazines are an integral part of virtually every semiautomatic firearm. Some, most notably some .22 caliber rifles, feed from under-barrel tubes, and even some pump action rifles and shotguns use detachable magazines. Without magazines, such weapons are reduced to very hard to load single-shot guns, so limiting their utility as to render them all but useless, which is obviously what Washington’s legislative and judicial institutions intend.
Bruen made clear that any gun control law must demonstrate a clear historical precedent. There is, of course, no such precedent where magazines or magazine size is concerned. The Founders would have been delighted to have AR-15s with standard—not high-capacity—30-round magazines. Technology changes, but the principles of the Second Amendment don’t.
To claim historical precedent, the Washington Supreme Court made a bizarre assertion:
And though magazines are an inherent part of any multi-shot firearm, the Washington Supreme Court bizarrely contends that they are historically analogous to cartridge boxes.
Magazines are the same as the packaging in which cartridges come?! In that they’re ironically right. Boxes of cartridges are of no more immediate use to an empty gun than are empty magazines or no magazines, and cartridge boxes are clearly not parts of any firearm.
It’s unlikely this law will be struck down by the 9th Circuit, which is arguably the most anti-liberty/gun circuit in the nation and the circuit most overturned by the Supreme Court. Should an appeal to the Supreme Court be necessary, it could easily take years for even a cert decision. The Supreme Court is in no hurry to resolve all the blue state gun issues before it.
In the meantime, Washington’s Democrat legislators may become emboldened and entirely ban magazines. Thus far, there’s nothing to stop them.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
This article was originally published at www.americanthinker.com
