BELLEVUE, WA – Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson is playing fast and loose with the facts when he claims every court across the country has “either rejected or overturned” legal challenges against magazine bans, the Second Amendment Foundation said in response.
“A federal court in California declared that state’s magazine ban to be unconstitutional,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “That ruling was stayed, and the order has been appealed to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, but it has yet to be overruled. Washington is in the 9th Circuit.”
Likewise, he noted, Oregon Measure 114—an extremist gun control law passed by voters two years ago, which contained a magazine ban—was also declared unconstitutional by a circuit court judge. That ruling has been appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court, but Gottlieb said the judge’s decision has also not been overruled
“We’re not sure why the media allows Ferguson to get away with such statements without some fact-checking,” Gottlieb questioned.
Another point Gottlieb raised was about Ferguson’s claim that Washington’s magazine ban “saves lives.”
“How can he say that” Gottlieb wondered. “The most recent report from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs shows the number of murders statewide went up in 2022, the year the ban law was signed, by 16.6 percent. There were 394 murders in the state that year, while 2021 saw 338 homicides.
“Indeed,” Gottlieb said, “since 2014 when Washington started passing increasingly strict gun control laws and initiatives, which Ferguson has supported, the number of murders has doubled. For Ferguson or anyone else to claim gun control laws are saving lives in Washington is a myth and maybe the media should call him on it.”