OLYMPIA — One 24-hour span demonstrates just how much the debate over firearms, at least for now, has changed at the Washington Legislature.
After an emotional debate late Wednesday night, Democratic lawmakers passed Senate Bill 5078 on a party-line vote. The legislation, now headed for debate in the House, would prohibit the manufacture, distribution and sale of firearm magazines holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition.
If enacted into law, the ban — which advocates and many Democrats have called necessary to reduce gun violence and fatalities — would limit not just magazines for rifles that hold 20 or 30 rounds. It would restrict the sale of magazines that go in a host of handguns and put Washington among a select group of states with tighter laws.
The timing for the annual Olympia gun-rights rally — which had been previously scheduled — seemed ripe for a crowd. For years, gun owners have turned out by the hundreds, and occasionally thousands, to fill the Capitol steps with signs and flags, pistols and long guns.
But on Thursday morning, the gathering drew only about 50 people. And they could no longer display the pistols and long guns they used to bring since lawmakers last year banned open carry of firearms at the Capitol.
“I think the fact that we’re in Zoom session kind of tamps down on activism,” said Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen. Walsh, who spoke at Thursday’s rally, added: “It takes some of the air out of the balloon.”
Even so, the bill is likely to bring stiff resistance. With the Legislature in its second year of working mostly remotely because of the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of people have signed up to oppose firearms legislation in some public hearings.
Now, with the 60-day legislative session more than halfway over, Democratic leaders will have to decide whether they have the votes and the willpower to push SB 5078 through the state House and over to Gov. Jay Inslee’s desk for signature.
In an email, Inslee spokesperson Mike Faulk said staff members haven’t reviewed the bill, “so we can’t speculate on specific actions.” But he noted that Inslee himself had pushed for similar legislation previously.
The next step seems assured. Lawmakers will give the bill a public hearing in the House Civil Rights & Judiciary Committee, according to Rep. Drew Hansen, D-Bainbridge Island.
“I’ve supported large-capacity magazine limits in the past … so I definitely want to see us move forward in this area,” Hansen, who chairs the committee, wrote in a text message.
But, “I don’t have good visibility into, is this the year” for it to pass the Legislature, Hansen added.
Likewise, in a meeting with reporters Wednesday hours before the bill passed, House Speaker Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, didn’t commit to giving the bill a floor vote in that chamber. She added: “It’s never a harmful year to do bills on gun safety.”
Sponsored by Sen. Marko Liias, D-Everett, SB 5078 would ban the sale, manufacture and distribution of gun magazines holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition.
In a Wednesday night floor speech urging passage, Liias invoked the Mukilteo shooting in the summer of 2016, when a gunman killed three people and injured another, and stopped shooting after running out of ammunition.
“On July 30, 2016, I vowed to myself and to my community that I would do everything in my power to ensure that no family has to go through what our community went through,” Liias said. “This measure will make Washington a safer place.”
