I don’t usually cover state level gun lawsuits (and Texas is pro-Second Amendment enough that they aren’t necessary here), but Washington State vs. Gator’s Guns is interesting, in that Washington State’s unconstitutional “high” (i.e. standard) capacity magazine ban has a good chance of being thrown out as unconstitutional.
Unlike two other cases challenging the law, Washington state’s Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson is the one suing Gator’s Guns. That means the case will be tried in rural Cowlitz County, as Ferguson can’t get the venue moved to liberal, urban Thurston County.
Pete Serrano of the Silent Majority Foundation: “We’ve had several hearings before judge [Gary] Basher, the presiding judge in this jurisdiction, who said ‘I want to know whether or not this ban is constitutional. Everything else can come in on the back end.'”
The AG’s playbook on cases in Kings and Pierce County was radically different. Serrano: “The Attorney General came in hard, fast, hit the person, and either tried to extract the settlement agreement or punish them immediately and had a favorable venue.”
Usually scheduling order hearings are uneventful things that can be done by Zoom. Not this one. Serrano: “Here the judge ordered us into the court in person on Monday and said ‘Listen, you guys can’t get the scheduling together because we’re pushing to have this thing done and heard by the end of 2023.'” The AG is trying to drag things out well into 2024.
The constitutional issues in the case have been covered before. Serrano: “We’ve briefed it in Brumback [vs. Ferguson], we’ve seen it briefed in other cases throughout the state and.”
“You have [U.S. District] Judge [Roger] Benitez’s opinion on the same thing in California.”
Washington Gun Law President William Kirk: “Let’s also remember that a lot of the case law that we’re talking about on the assault weapon bans, is also similar case law that would be cited in a magazine ban case as well.” I suspect this is a reference to Bruen. One thing I haven’t seen in this video or the snippets on this case online is how Bruen has changed the burden of proof on government regulation of citizen firearms.
Serrano: “There’s nothing really original here.”
Kirk: “Did the Attorney General bite off a little more than they could chew on this one?”
Serrano: “Oh absolutely…It was like here’s a gift from God. Or, you know definitely not God, but from Bob Ferguson. It’s [a gift] from Satan…He’s going to go into a rural small conservative county and sue someone who allegedly sold over a thousand of these magazines.”
In 12 years, Cowlitz County has gone from mild blue to deep red.
This is the sort of magazine ban I can see being struck down even before Bruen. In light of the the post-Bruen environment, it’s hard to believe it won’t get struck down.
Only stubborn Democratic dedication to complete civilian disarmament keeps the Bob Fergusons of the world trying to impose gun control methods that have already been found unconstitutional.
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3 Responses to “Washington State vs. Gator’s Guns”
Ferguson is a complete POS political hack. Always has been, always will be. He wants to parlay this crap into a gubernatorial run; it’s all optics, all the time.
That he’s doing it in Cowlitz County? LOL… Not smart, that. Not at all.
None of these literally Olympian types “get” the rest of the state… The current POS governor Inslee got his start in politics running a bait-and-switch routine to get elected in the district that eventually produced “Doc” Hastings to replace him. The creepy bastard is from the Seattle area, and lied directly to my face when I met him on the campaign trail. He promised all these things about what he’d do, sounding like the old-school “Scoop” Jackson Democrat he was cosplaying as, but when he got elected and went to DC? LOL… Lasted that one term, and got sent home.
The urban areas of this state are storing up a lot of anger and outright hatred in the rural counties they keep cramming this crap down onto. It won’t end well, and I would not want to see what happens when the fireworks start. It’ll be very, very interesting to see what happens if the overdue Cascadia Subduction earthquake ever happens under these asshole’s tenure, and how they deal with it.
Even if the death toll is initially low? The entire western half of the state is very likely to be cut-up into entirely unsupportable little enclaves that nobody is going to be able to resupply or evacuate due to the road network going bye-bye. There are way too many cuts and built-up areas that were designed before the various building departments knew about the 1700 Cascadia earthquake; the assumption was that “…we don’t have earthquakes like that in the Pacific Northwest…”, and nothing was built in accordance with the potential for that sort of thing. When it comes, depending on what time of year and what the soil moisture content is, most of the western side of the state is going to look about like Oso; lots and lots of collapsed hillsides. The road network is almost certainly going to be toast; it’ll be helicopters or nothing. If they get really lucky, it’ll be sorta survivable; if not? Apocalyptic on a scale you can’t even imagine.
There’s evidence for tidal waves washing over the eastern shore of Lake Washington, which is on the eastern side of Seattle. Ponder that for a moment, and consider the scale of the tidal wave that could do that… Also, consider that the core sample evidence shows Lake Washington going salt water-brackish-fresh water in a cycle about ever thousand years or so… And, that they’ve found salt water plants buried meters deep on the eastern shore of that lake, presumably brought there by the tsunami that came racing down the Sound.
They did not know these things when they built all those cities; Tacoma has a good likelihood for getting wiped the hell out if Rainier ever lets go.
I hate to say it, but Western Washington and Oregon? Not good bets; they’ve a solid chance of being the next generation’s Sodom and Gomorrah story.
Which would make me laugh, but I am a bad person, so… Yeah.
It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t or it does, no one is complying anymore anyway. Had a long chat with a former fbi forensic accountant at my gun club and he confirmed as much.
Did these people really think everyone wouldn’t notice the inconsistencies? Yeah that’s over.
What is the law and precedent to the Left? Power is all that matters. Look at how the SCOTUS found the right to abortion between the constitutional clauses that justified trannyism and the one that justified homosexual marriage. So lets not be over joyed that the Left has run into a road block. It just means they will find another way.
Ferguson is a complete POS political hack. Always has been, always will be. He wants to parlay this crap into a gubernatorial run; it’s all optics, all the time.
That he’s doing it in Cowlitz County? LOL… Not smart, that. Not at all.
None of these literally Olympian types “get” the rest of the state… The current POS governor Inslee got his start in politics running a bait-and-switch routine to get elected in the district that eventually produced “Doc” Hastings to replace him. The creepy bastard is from the Seattle area, and lied directly to my face when I met him on the campaign trail. He promised all these things about what he’d do, sounding like the old-school “Scoop” Jackson Democrat he was cosplaying as, but when he got elected and went to DC? LOL… Lasted that one term, and got sent home.
The urban areas of this state are storing up a lot of anger and outright hatred in the rural counties they keep cramming this crap down onto. It won’t end well, and I would not want to see what happens when the fireworks start. It’ll be very, very interesting to see what happens if the overdue Cascadia Subduction earthquake ever happens under these asshole’s tenure, and how they deal with it.
Even if the death toll is initially low? The entire western half of the state is very likely to be cut-up into entirely unsupportable little enclaves that nobody is going to be able to resupply or evacuate due to the road network going bye-bye. There are way too many cuts and built-up areas that were designed before the various building departments knew about the 1700 Cascadia earthquake; the assumption was that “…we don’t have earthquakes like that in the Pacific Northwest…”, and nothing was built in accordance with the potential for that sort of thing. When it comes, depending on what time of year and what the soil moisture content is, most of the western side of the state is going to look about like Oso; lots and lots of collapsed hillsides. The road network is almost certainly going to be toast; it’ll be helicopters or nothing. If they get really lucky, it’ll be sorta survivable; if not? Apocalyptic on a scale you can’t even imagine.
There’s evidence for tidal waves washing over the eastern shore of Lake Washington, which is on the eastern side of Seattle. Ponder that for a moment, and consider the scale of the tidal wave that could do that… Also, consider that the core sample evidence shows Lake Washington going salt water-brackish-fresh water in a cycle about ever thousand years or so… And, that they’ve found salt water plants buried meters deep on the eastern shore of that lake, presumably brought there by the tsunami that came racing down the Sound.
They did not know these things when they built all those cities; Tacoma has a good likelihood for getting wiped the hell out if Rainier ever lets go.
I hate to say it, but Western Washington and Oregon? Not good bets; they’ve a solid chance of being the next generation’s Sodom and Gomorrah story.
Which would make me laugh, but I am a bad person, so… Yeah.
It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t or it does, no one is complying anymore anyway. Had a long chat with a former fbi forensic accountant at my gun club and he confirmed as much.
Did these people really think everyone wouldn’t notice the inconsistencies? Yeah that’s over.
What is the law and precedent to the Left? Power is all that matters. Look at how the SCOTUS found the right to abortion between the constitutional clauses that justified trannyism and the one that justified homosexual marriage. So lets not be over joyed that the Left has run into a road block. It just means they will find another way.