FEDERAL WAY, Wash. — Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a consumer protection lawsuit against a Federal Way gun store for illegally selling high-capacity magazines.
As of July 1, the sale of ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds is banned in the state. Importing, manufacturing and distributing high-capacity magazines are also outlawed. While Senate Bill 5078 prohibits the sale and distribution of high-capacity magazines, it does not ban the possession of such magazines.
The lawsuit followed a statewide sweep of 25 gun stores in the state. It is only against the store in Federal Way. Twenty-three other shops were found to be in compliance with the law and one is still under investigation.
According to the Attorney General's Office, investigators were able to buy magazines that held over 10 rounds from the Federal Way Discount Guns four separate times.
Each time, they noted the cashiers and the owner destroyed the record of the sale and told them they knew it was illegal. One sales clerk told an investigator, "It's the nature of the beast," then threw the receipt in the garbage.
The lawsuit asks the courts to permanently stop the sale of the high-capacity magazines, require the store to destroy the illegal inventory or return it to the manufacturer, forfeit all profits made from the illegal sales and pay the penalties.
The maximum penalty is a payment of $7,500 every time the store offered a high-capacity magazine for sale and $7,500 every time it illegally sold a high-capacity magazine.
Ferguson's office said the evidence that this ban saves lives is overwhelming. One 2019 study from the American Journal of Public Health found that states without high-capacity magazine bans have double the amount of high-fatality mass shootings compared to those that do have bans.