AG Ferguson Wants to "Protect" You by Disarming You
Make it Make Sense.
Hey SMFers! How appropriate that we would be getting this update out on our Gator’s Guns case on Constitution Day! Wouldn’t it be awesome if the Washington State Attorney General remembered his duty to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States of America? On September 11, 2024, Silent Majority Foundation received the State’s Brief requesting that the Superior Court’s decision be reversed. Attorney Austin Hatcher will lay out some of the “highlights” below.
State’s Brief Highlights
The State opens with a contention that the people have a right to disarm the people “through their elected representatives.” They contend that it is a "dangerous misinterpretation" that commonly owned firearms are protected under the second amendment. The state insists that the right to bear arms is simply a privilege; in fact,
"the right of the people, through their elected representatives, to respond to horrific acts of mass violence by ensuring dangerous weapons remain off the streets would be stripped away…"
if the Court is to uphold the right to bear arms. This is in fact the very purpose of the right to bear arms. As ably stated by the U.S. Supreme Court:
"The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government-even the Third Branch of Government-the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is *really worth* insisting upon. A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges' assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all." Dist. of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 634, 128 S. Ct. 2783 (2008).
The State also continues its assertion that "ordinary" magazines are unaffected, and only "Large Capacity Magazines" are covered by ESSB 5078. This completely ignores that so-called "LCMs" are the most commonly owned type of detachable magazine. Convenient omission of the facts by the State, once again.
The State thinks that you only need one round to keep the right to bear arms intact contending that semiautomatic firearms will operate (as a single-shot breechloader) without any magazine inserted, and therefore the right to bear arms is not implicated. You get what you get and you don't throw a fit.
Similarly, because a so-called LCM "by itself, has virtually no utility in self-defense" they are not protected by the right to bear arms. A trigger, by itself, has virtually no utility in self-defense either, nor does a barrel, nor a firing pin, nor even a bullet. The State can apparently take any of those components away without affecting the right to bear arms.
The State continues to make the patently absurd claim that having more rounds available is *disadvantageous* for self-defense. The claim is that so-called LCMs do not facilitate self-defense, and are only useful in killing as many people as possible as quickly as possible. Somehow, detachable magazines are not "traditionally or commonly used" for self-defense. Never mind that detachable magazines have been in existence since before Washington was a state, or that so-called LCMs have been in existence for just as long, and as admitted by the State have been widely available to civilians since at least the 1980s.
Red Herring Arguments Abound in the State's Brief.
For instance, it argues that "individuals almost never fire more than ten rounds in self-defense" and therefore so-called LCMs are not protected. But that is not the standard. Swords are almost never used in self-defense, but they are protected by the Washington Constitution. The test is whether a weapon is "traditionally or commonly used in self-defense."
Further, the State relies upon the Ruling by Commissioner Johnston denying direct discretionary review in Guardian Arms v. State, that semiautomatic weapons are not protected because in 1889 that "was simply not a possibility." But this freezing of technological advances argument has already been rejected. The right to bear arms does not only protect arms that were in existence at the time the right was enshrined.
Again, the State claims that disarming law-abiding citizens will “likely” save lives. The recent events blasted across the media (and for good reason) clearly show that criminals, intent on committing a violent crime, will do so regardless of any laws, bans, etc…
You can view and download the State’s Brief on our website at the link below:
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The Media Won’t Tell You that Guns Save Lives
The FBI says self-defense with a gun is RARE, and their “statistics” support that. The legacy media, Hollywood, and left-wing politicians use that data to push gun control. But criminal justice researcher John Lott says the FBI ignores lots of cases where civilians’ guns SAVE LIVES.
Click the graphic below or HERE to watch:
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