high capacity magazines
(Dan Z. for TTAG)

The Neighbor online is reporting on Washington State’s push, for the fourth straight year, to ban the sale, manufacture or possession of magazines with more than 10 rounds in Washington state.

Sponsored by Washington Sen. Marko Liias, D-Lynnwood,Senate Bill 5078 builds on efforts in the state legislature to slap stricter limits on ammunition sales. Gun control advocates say they could save lives in a mass shooting.

The bill bans high-capacity magazines capable of carrying more than 10 rounds of ammunition and includes fines up to $5,000 for violators. Those bought on or before the bill’s passage would be exempt along with any hand-me-downs a gun owner receives after its passage.

How’s this little gem for justifying the criminalization of tens of thousands of Washington gun owners?

“People served best by high-capacity magazines are mass shooters,” said Emily Cantrell, a survivor of the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting. “The Second Amendment allows us the right to bear arms, but freedoms and rights come with responsibilities. And the right to own a gun does not give you the right to all the ammunition in the world.”

On the flip side The Neighbor quoted Washington Civil Rights Association Second Amendment advocate Curtis Bingham:

“Consider if you will for a moment a woman walking alone in downtown Seattle from her office to her car,” Bingham said. “With a magazine capacity of 10 rounds, how will she defend her life against two, three, or more violent criminals? When she’s struggling with one hand to hold off her attacker, she can’t reload her 10-round magazine because reloading requires two hands.”

No worries, though: The Neighbor dismissed Bingham’s statement easily enough with a little help from a civilian disarmament advocacy organization:

Studies show most murdered American women are likely to know their killer and few are likely to have or use a gun.

Based on FBI data from 2015, the nonprofit Violence Policy Center found that of 328 homicides in that year, just 16 saw a woman killing a man with a gun.

Perhaps the issue here is that women aren’t yet involved enough in self-defense and the firearms world. Maybe women need more education on these issues rather than having them dismissed as irrelevant. Just an idea.

Also pointed out in The Neighbor’s piece was the claim that high capacity magazines kill people (apparently). And I always thought that it was the guns they liked to blame.

On Monday, supporters of Senate Bill 5078 said running low on ammunition is precisely what they want to see happen to a mass shooter.

“When magazine capacity is limited, it forces the shooter to pause and reload,” said Cherie Rowe, vice president of Grandmothers Against Gun Violence. “The seconds it takes for a shooter to reload offers precious moments for the victims to either escape or law enforcement to intervene.”

I’m not here to argue that the pause to reload isn’t an important moment because it is, but the idea that a mass murderer is going to respect your gun control laws and limit himself to ten rounds is patently insane. It feels as though I’ve said this before – oh wait, I have – criminals are going to act criminally, no matter what the law says.

Seeing Washington state devolve into Little California so quickly has been disturbing. It would be no surprise whatsoever if this magazine ban is passed which is a sad statement of the anti-gun turn politics have taken in The Evergreen State. And remember…if it can happen there, it can happen in your state, too. Defending your gun rights is a never-ending process.

What do you all think? How effective would a magazine ban be in stopping mass murderers (who are probably wielding illegally obtained guns)? Is the idea of needing more than ten rounds for self-defense purposes relevant or not? And if you live in Washington State are you planning to stick it out or are you considering a move?

55 COMMENTS

  1. If that woman is stopped by the stasi to check her vaccine passport how will they be able to determine when or how she came to own said magazine?

    • Only a matter of time before they will require all of your magazines to be brought to Big Brother’s Registry Shop to be serialized and recorded. After which it will become a felony to be in possession of any magazine without an approved and registered Washington State serial number.

      If they can get even one little portion of this passed and it survives a court challenge you KNOW they are on to the next step.

      • PLEASE don’t give the idiots in Sacramento any more ideas. We’re trying to repeal the “high” capacity magazine ban, not make it “work”..

  2. I’m staying for the present time due to the lack of income tax and relatively low cost of living in my area. Thankfully, I live next to the ID border. I’d give them a big FU just for the hell of it and buy them after the ban. They have no way of proving when they were purchased.

    • That’s my big question:

      “Those bought on or before the bill’s passage would be exempt along with any hand-me-downs a gun owner receives after its passage.”

      Other than this is step 1 towards / on to the slippery slope (the continued slice of cake analogy), what does this do other that prevent “new” people for buying 10+round mags?

      And cash purchases in ID as mentioned?

      Help my thick skull understand here.

    • This was my question with the 15rd ban in CO. What’s stopping someone from buying and using whatever they want since theirs no way to prove anything? What’s stopping someone from moving out of state into CO with their super-scary standard cap mags and just saying that they bought them in cash from someone who lived here and said they were grandfathered? Far as I can tell, not a goddamn thing.

  3. “People served best by high-capacity magazines are mass shooters” – so no carve out for law enforcement this time??? Yeah, right.

    • That’s a feature NOT a bug. Remember these are the same people trying to defund the police.

    • And ANTIFA and BLM execution squads. That way they can stay at the edge of the pit for a longer time without having to reload.

  4. Studies show most murdered American women are likely to know their killer and few are likely to have or use a gun.

    Did the study consider the possibility that not having or using a gun might have something to do with the women being murdered?

    • yes. a woman WITHOUT a gun who is attacked by an abusive ex or a stalker is more likely to become a murdered woman statistic.

      a woman WITH a gun doesn’t always even have to shoot an abusive ex or stalker to get him to flee.

      so the statistics about women being murdered are skewed.

      • And interestingly a woman attacked by someone she knows, when attacked with a gun is only about 2% more likely to die than if she is attacked without a gun, while a man attacked by a woman that he knows is about 6% more likely to die if the attacker uses a firearm.

        All indications from studies on DV indicate that when someone is going to be killed the person doing the killing is usually successful and, mostly, doesn’t use a gun. It seems that the victim is usually unaware of what’s going to happen and therefore unable/unwilling to defend themselves properly. Weapon type doesn’t change the outcome much; the choice to defend oneself does.

        IIRC, the weapon of choice for DVs turned murder is a household knife in most cases. Also of note, again going from memory on studies from like five years back, blunting the point wouldn’t matter much because it seems that there’s not a statistically significant difference in deaths from slashing vs. stabbing. The second choice was a bludgeon of some type, again usually a household object. As such it’s an unexpected frenzy attack, that is, it’s sudden and motivated by rage. It doesn’t tend to stop until the victim gets away or is killed. It’s not usually foreseen by the victim and it’s often not well defended against.

        Which is exactly how my former neighbor got hacked to death in her front yard by a machete wielding lunatic, though that wasn’t technically a domestic. Guy shows up, talks a bit and suddenly goes nuts. He grabs a machete and goes to town on the woman and anyone who tries to stop him. Killed his target, put her husband in the hospital for months and wounded both children as well as a family friend.

  5. “The [First] Amendment allows us the right to [free speech], but freedoms and rights come with responsibilities. And the right to own a [printing press] does not give you the right to all the [paper and ink] in the world.”

    There’s a lot of white supremacy, insurrection, and hate speech. So, I propose a limit of 10 pages and 1cc of ink per day. Digitally, let’s allow 1kB of characters per day.

    • Good God, man, think of the damage people could do with a high-capacity digital device and a keyboard with *67* keys! Not to mention the mass violence inherent in a high rate of Twitter posting.

      We’d better slap some “responsibilities” on those out-of-control rights, pronto.

      • Facebook and Twitter are doing just that as we speak.
        So… hahahahaha……ha…..ho……shoot…….

  6. “People served best by high-capacity magazines are mass shooters”

    Well, she isn’t wrong from a certain point of view. The government is comprised of a bunch of self-absorbed would be/soon to be mass murderers… Sure as hell won’t hold themselves accountable when they do

  7. States are looking for all kinds of revenue sources to replace what they lost last year. The UK fines heavily for all kinds of silly things. Look at NYC.

    Fines and fees for everythi my are going to be the new rule. They don’t really want you in jail. They want you working and paying for all the free stuff.

      • I was hoping you would be on here Montana. What you said the other day, “we’re all criminals,” a’int it just the damned, wretched truth? One law away. I’ll just be a felon, fuck em.

  8. Hope they ban the rental of trucks from home depot. I heard a bunch died because they just let anyone borrow an F250 without any questions.

  9. Over here is my bucket of hunting rocks, and over here is my bucket of defense rocks, and over here is my bucket of target grade rocks. I had some obsidian but they were considered assault rocks, can’t have assault rocks.

    • Mine are all confused Trisexual morphing lasagna… let’s see someone try and fuck with them now !!

    • You are not mistaken. It takes it takes the same amo9unt of time to change a ten round mag as a 30 round mag. The few seconds it takes has never been shown to be ling enough for people to reach cover or to try to take out the gun man. The Vegas shooter was so high up and the people down below so crowded it made no difference how many rounds his mags held.

      • True. He could have used a suppressed bolt action and taken more out with accuracy instead of volumizing indirect fire.

  10. Have you ever gotten the feeling that you know what the person in the link will look like before you even click on it ? I swear that I have ESP, or maybe, I dunno, just deja vu, but Sheila looks like a laminite in the picture slots of a left – handed billfold would be.

  11. “Those bought on or before the bill’s passage would be exempt along with any hand-me-downs a gun owner receives after its passage.”

    So, basically unenforceable, unless police literally catch in the act of handing over cash for a magazine.

    • Removing them from the shelves alone is pure bologna. Enforcement is not necessary. It’s the process of elimination that works best in these slow card games.

    • Just like the one in Colorado which they found out was completely unenforceable. Although given the level of retardation that Seattle has stooped to in the last few years I wouldn’t put it past them to find a way to enforce this.

    • Back during the Clitoons AWB it had something to do with magazines being serial numbered and if they were marked China, I think it went if they weren’t marked they were the grandfathered ones, the China ones were no no , I think. They was going to make serial numbered ones the only ones you could buy.
      Serial numbers are for tracing purposes.LOL we’ve even got a serial number, Social Security Card.

  12. I guess they feel that the 9th circuit Duncan v Becerra case that rules CA mag bans & round limits unconstitutional is meaningless in WA despite the fact they also reside in the 9th? WA must have gotten an advance memo showing that the great reset & Xiden’s court interference will nullify that inconvenient fact.

  13. Those grandfathered clips…er….mags are restricted to the owners property and can only be transported somewhere else unloaded and separated from firearms and ammunition.

  14. Ten rounds is a number with magical properties. Eleven round magazines are killing machines beloved by mass murderers. But ten round magazines mysteriously transport potential victims out of range. It’s science!

    So the lesson is clear. Wear a magic mask and use a magic magazine and nobody will ever die! And even of you do die, you will still vote for Joe Biden, who actually had a fatal stroke two months ago when he was told that he won the election.

    • Well, its now 2 or 3 magic masks should be worn so by that logic 2 or 3 firearms with their 10 round magic mags might be sufficient.
      Weekend at Bernie’s has now turned into a 4 year political comedy.

  15. Looks like all my 223/556 AR mags have now decided to self identify as 10rd 458 socom magazines…..

    I’ll be happy to order more of those legal 10rd 458 socom magazines for my rebarrled bolt action mossberg MVP patrol 😉😉

  16. They are absolutely right. If the Police were limited to lower capacity magazines, perhaps Breanna Taylor would still be alive. She may have had opportunity to duck while they were still reloading.

  17. They’ve tried this for 4 years and failed the previous 3. Outside of the larger cities this like most states, pretty red. With all the new gun owners and people seeing how obtrusive the laws are, WA residents like myself are hoping this doesn’t get through to vote.

    • None of the new anti-gun laws made it through the legislature — as you said, there’s good reason to hope (maybe even expect) that this one won’t either. They were passed through the initiative process, which has been entirely bought by the progressive billionaires club.

      You can look for this, plus worse, to come to an initiative in the next 2-3 years. If our legislators won’t take our rights away, the evil progressives will convince the idiots of this state to give them away.

  18. Im in WA, grew up here. This state has been going in a downward spiral for a while. If this garbage passes (along with other gun control bs im sure) im definitely going to be looking at other states in the future.

    Much harder said than done though. Ive built a happy life. My family is here, my work is here, ive recently bought my first house here… if i moved states it would be starting from scratch, to be honest the idea of starting my life over in a new place is intimidating. I would be happier in a free state in the long run, thats for sure.

    • Live near JBLM. $5K? LMFAO. All my weapons and magazines are at the bottom of Puget Sound! Tragic boating accident.

  19. The amended limit is 17 rounds, not 10.

    But it doesn’t matter, it shows that they make up arbitrary numbers to make people feel good.

    For now, this is the only poison that WA residents need to fight. The AWB and axing state premption are off the table, for now.

  20. LOL the law has its own built in LOOPHOLE

    Those bought on or before the bill’s passage would be exempt along with any hand-me-downs a gun owner receives after its passage.

    easy…metal mags don’t have manufacture dates on them and most plastic mags AND if they do======sandpaper!

  21. Everyone in NY owns 30rd AR mags still after passing their gun control in 2013. How the hell do these morons think it’ll be different in their state?

  22. “People served best by high-capacity magazines are mass shooters”

    You knew it was coming, but here it is:

    Subsection (1) of this section does not apply to any of the following:

    (h) Law enforcement officers of this or another state, or state or local corrections officers, while acting within the scope of official duties, including authorized possession while not on duty, if authorized to acquire or possess a large capacity magazine in connection with official duties;

    The party of “Defund the Police” is also the party of “make sure only the police have ‘mass shooter’ equipment.”

  23. and what are these goofy Washington magazine banners going to do when the 9th Circus Enbanc upholds the ruling of the three Judge Ruling on Magazine Bans in the California Case… Whine, Cry, and wailing & Gnashing of Teeth?

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