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Washington state has passed lots of new gun laws. Could they be in legal trouble?

David Gutman, The Seattle Times on

Published in News & Features

[high-capacity magazines] when the unrebutted evidence shows they make mass shootings and other horrific crimes more frequent and more

deadly, and when the evidence shows they are not used for self-defense," Ferguson wrote.

Zach Pekelis, a lawyer with Pacifica Law Group who represents Alliance for Gun Responsibility and Oregon Alliance for Gun Safety, said the Cowlitz County judge interpreted Bruen incorrectly.

"Just because you didn't see the exact type of regulation in 1791 or 1868 doesn't mean that the modern law is unconstitutional," Pekelis said. "Different technologies and different societal concerns have evolved and perhaps even dramatically changed over time and the Constitution is supposed to be adaptive in that way."

Bruen, Pekelis noted, does not require "a historical twin," just a "historical analogue."

For instance, there may not have been historical bans on carrying guns in zoos and on buses, but there were historical bans on carrying guns in "sensitive places" like courthouses, schools and government buildings.

 

"The key question is whether modern and historical regulations impose a comparable burden," Pekelis said, "and whether that burden is comparably justified."

The Supreme Court didn't specify whether lower courts (and historians) should look to 1791, when the Second Amendment was adopted, or to 1868, when the 14th Amendment, which applies the Second Amendment to the states, was adopted.

"We need not address this issue today," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the 6-3 court.

But lower courts across the country have been puzzled about how to proceed.

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