KELSO, Wash. — In the roughly 90 minutes that selling high-capacity gun magazines was legal in Washington on Monday, a Kelso gun store owner sold hundreds of magazines to hundreds of customers before the state stepped in and successfully had the ban reinstated.
A Cowlitz County judge overturned Washington's ban on high capacity magazines on Monday, finding it unconstitutional, but the Washington Supreme Court quickly approved a request for an emergency stay on the order requested by the Washington Attorney General's office.
The result: a statewide ban on the sale, manufacture, distribution and import of gun magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds remains in place — for now.
A hearing is set for April 17, with escalation to the state Supreme Court possible.
Wally Wentz, owner of Gator's Custom Guns in Kelso, described Monday as "magazine day" at his store. Wentz is behind the court challenge to Washington's high-capacity magazine ban, with the help of the Silent Majority Foundation.
When a Cowlitz County judge ruled in his favor Monday, Wentz opened his store on an off day, put out a blast on Facebook, and sold as many magazines as he could.
"A flow of constant thank yous, 'Do you have this?' 'Do you have that?' 'How many can I have?'" Wentz said, referring to the customers who came by. "'Is there a limit?' I said, 'What's your limit on your gold card?'"
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, in a statement following the initial ruling, said the magazine ban saves lives and is essential to addressing mass shootings.
Even with a legal win in Cowlitz County, Wentz said he always expected an appeal.
"It's going to be a tough argument to throw this out," he said. "If they do, it's really going to smell like fish."
State Senator Patty Kuderer, a Democrat representing Bellevue who sponsored the magazine ban legislation, expressed confidence that the ban will prevail in higher courts.
"They’ll look at this as a public safety issue, which it is, and it does not impair someone’s ability to have a gun," Kuderer said. "It just limits the number of bullets that can be fired at one time."
Robert Schentrup, whose sister Carmen was killed in the 2018 Parkland, Florida high school shooting, said he’s frustrated and nervous the law could be stripped back, but he’ll keep pushing for more gun regulation.
"I feel very truly that if I was to not do anything about Carmen's death, just try to forget that it happened, that her death would be in vain," Schentrup said. "By using it as something to catalyze myself and to catalyze others into action, we can have it mean something."
Meanwhile, Wentz said he's hoping for a legal win so he can put the high-capacity magazines at his store back on the shelves. He said he lost 30-40% percent of his business with the ban, and he wouldn’t hesitate to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"If we do lose in there, we’re going to appeal — just like we knew the state would appeal this week," he said. "If we get to those folks in black dresses, it’s going to be a dogfight."
A hearing with the commissioner of the Washington Supreme Court is set for April 17 to determine if the emergency stay remains in place.
The attorney general's office will, on April 23, argue that the case should be sent directly to the state's Supreme Court, bypassing the traditional appellate process. The Washington Supreme Court will make this decision.