OLYMPIA, WA – The Alliance for Gun Responsibility issued the following statement in response to the introduction of House Bill 2947, which would protect our communities by keeping high-capacity magazines off our streets. 

“We are grateful to Speaker Jinkins and Representatives Valdez, Kilduff, Senn, Peterson, Doglio, Orwall, Walen, and Bergquist for their leadership and commitment to addressing the gun violence epidemic,” Renée Hopkins, CEO of the Alliance for Gun Responsibility. “They are standing up against bully tactics and standing up for Washingtonians. A group of representatives, beholden to the gun lobby, are publicly gloating about how they killed this lifesaving bill—not with open dialogue about policy, but with hundreds of duplicative, obstructionist amendments. That is unconscionable. No one should be allowed to hijack the legislative process and undermine the will of Washington voters who want to keep deadly high-capacity magazines out of our communities.  

In Washington state, high-capacity magazines have been used in mass shootings in Mukilteo, Burlington, Seattle, and Spokane. Shooters also used them in the five deadliest mass shootings in our nation’s history: Las Vegas, Orlando, Sutherland Springs, Sandy Hook, and Parkland. Whether a state allows high-capacity magazine sales is the single best predictor of mass shooting rates in that state. That’s because limiting magazine capacity forces shooters to pause to reload, buying precious seconds for victims and law enforcement. During Sandy Hook, 11 children were able to escape while the shooter was forced to reload. In Parkland, the mass shooting ended only when the shooter’s assault weapon jammed while he attempted to reload. And in the 2011 Tucson shooting of then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the gunfire was interrupted when the shooter, who was using a 33-round magazine, stopped to reload and fumbled with the fresh ammunition.

Prohibiting high capacity magazines will save lives. Period. Our lawmakers have a responsibility to our communities to bring this lifesaving measure up for a vote.” 

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