Washington became the latest state to ban commonly owned semiautomatic firearms when it passed HB 1240 last week. And now it has become the latest state to get sued—after an NRA-ILA backed lawsuit was filed in federal court today.
“A state may not ‘prohibit an entire class of arms that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for a lawful purpose.’ Yet that is precisely what Washington State has just done,” the lawsuit says. “HB 1240 takes the radical step of banning nearly every modern semiautomatic rifle—the single most popular type of rifle in the country, possessed by Americans in the tens of millions. Indeed, Americans buy more of the most popular type of semiautomatic rifle (the AR-15) each year than the most popular type of automobile (the Ford F-150), and there are more AR-15-style rifles in private hands in America today than subscribers to all daily newspapers nationwide combined.” The lawsuit asks the court to declare HB 1240 unconstitutional and enjoin the state from enforcing it in the future.
Washington, however, is not the only state banning these lawful arms and disregarding both the Second Amendment and the Supreme Court’s rulings. Nor is this the first case of this type that NRA-ILA has brought. In January, a similar lawsuit was filed against Illinois challenging its semiautomatic and magazine bans. In December, a lawsuit was filed challenging Oregon’s newly passed magazine ban. In September, a lawsuit was filed challenging Delaware’s new magazine and semiautomatic bans. And just last summer, the United States Supreme Court reversed and remanded two other cases that the NRA-ILA brought challenging magazine bans in California and New Jersey.
NRA-ILA will continue to hold these states liable and vindicate our members’ rights in the courts as long as they continue to disregard the liberties secured by the Constitution and recognized by the Supreme Court.
The case is captioned Banta v. Ferguson. It was filed in the Eastern District of Washington on behalf of individual plaintiffs and the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
Please stay tuned to www.nraila.org for future updates on NRA-ILA’s ongoing efforts to defend your constitutional rights.