By a 7-2 vote, the totally-left-of-center Washington state Supreme Court has ruled that so-called large-capacity magazines” (LCMs) are not “arms” protected by the constitution, and therefore the state ban on such magazines is legal.

The case is known as State v. Gator’s Custom Guns.

The ruling was cheered by anti-gunners, but on the side of the Second Amendment and Article I, Section 24 of the State Constitution, there is anger and frustration. Comments by readers at the Seattle Times and Seattle’s KOMO—the local ABC affiliate—are sometimes blistering.

Gator’s Guns Attorney Pete Serrano, in an exclusive exchange of messages with AmmoLand News, stated, “While we’re disappointed in the majority decision, we’re grateful to Justices Gordon McCloud and Whitener for their dissent, which stands for the rule of law and our collective and individual rights.

“Specifically,” he continued, “they call out the majority opinion for the use of interest-balancing and the notion that ‘LCMs are neither ‘arms’ nor commonly used for self-defense.’ In the majority’s eyes, LCMS are ‘merely a subclass of containers for ammunition cartridges that are added to weapons to make them ‘more capable of mass murder.’

“This is NOT the end of the road,” Serrano declared, “it’s just a temporary stop. We believe that how the majority opinion addresses OUR Second Amendment rights will help this trip end at the United States Supreme Court!”

Indeed, in Justice Charles W. Johnson’s 19-page opinion for the court, he wrote, “LCMs also fall outside either protection of the right to bear arms because the provisions protect only those arms that are commonly used for self-defense, and we have been presented with no credible and persuasive evidence or argument that LCMs are commonly used for such a purpose.”

Elsewhere, Johnson insisted, “Although Gator’s offers ownership statistics, whether LCMs are common in circulation does not inform this court whether they are ‘commonly used for self-defense,’ as how many LCMs are owned has no bearing on what those LCMs are actually used for. To that point, there is only minimal and highly contested evidence, which we do not find sufficient to bear Gator’s burden to prove LCMs fall within constitutional protection.

“By restricting only magazines of a capacity greater than 10,” Johnson contended, “the statute effectively regulates the maximum capacity of magazines, leaving the weapon fully functional for its intended purpose. Indeed, we can safely say that individuals are still able to exercise the core right to bear arms when they are limited to purchasing magazines with a capacity of 10 or fewer.”

These remarks seem to ignore that LCMs, along with any other magazine or any other type of firearm, can be “used for self-defense” without a shot having been fired. Their mere possession is part of any defense strategy. Johnson, in effect, is mincing words.

That may have been underscored by a quote from his opinion contained in a report by the Courthouse News.

“First,” Johnson wrote, “we have never held that magazines are arms, and the fact that a semiautomatic weapon will not function as intended without one does not conclusively establish that they are…

“Logically, the fact that the government could not ban an entire class of firearm components without impairing the right to bear arms does not mean that the government is not permitted to restrict a specific subclass of that component,” Johnson maintained.

However, in their spirited 34-page dissent, written by Justice Sheryl Gordon McCloud, joined by Justice G. Helen Whitener, they argue, “The Second Amendment protects the individual right to keep and bear arms…More specifically, it protects the right of law-abiding people to keep and bear arms ‘in common use’—not just arms that the government approves of. And it protects that conduct when it is done ‘for lawful purposes’ including, but not limited to, ‘self-defense’ —not just when it involves returning fire, as the State seems to contend. Finally, the Second Amendment’s protection of that conduct is the highest in ‘the home, where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute.’”

Elsewhere, Gordon McCloud—quoted by the Everett Herald—also had this to say: “The State argues that we should view our nation’s early limits on the right to keep and bear arms at an extremely high level of generality—so high that we characterize those old laws as barring weapons once society weighs their utility against their danger and decides that they are too dangerous. But that is precisely the sort of policy-laden interest-balancing that the United States Supreme Court… has explicitly barred under the Second Amendment. And it is the sort of interest-balancing that repressive governments have historically used to suppress opposition.”

The state high court ruling reverses a 2024 Cowlitz County Superior Court ruling by Judge Gary Bashor which declared the 2022 ban violates the constitution.

The state Supreme Court ruling was, according to some, predictable. There are no “moderates” or “conservatives” on the court, which is frequently referred to as the “Seattle Supreme Court” because of its liberal tilt.

The ban was supported by former attorney general, and now Gov. Bob Ferguson, a Democrat who also supported the state’s ban on so-called “assault weapons.” His successor, Attorney General Nick Brown, lauded the ruling, contending it “is right on the law and will save lives.”

“Large capacity magazines are used in the overwhelming majority of mass shootings, and reducing the toll of these senseless killings is vitally important,” Brown said in a message posted on “X.”

As noted by MyNorthwest.com, the LCM ban prohibits manufacturing, selling, buying or importing such magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds. People who owned such magazines prior to the ban may keep them, but their uses are restricted. The ban applies to all rifle and handgun magazines which hold more than ten cartridges, including those designed for .22-caliber rimfire rifles such as the Ruger 10/22.

About Dave Workman

Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.