OLYMPIA, Wash. — Legislation to ban high-capacity gun magazines looked to be dead, but Thursday afternoon there was a surprise at the state Capitol.
On Thursday morning, Democratic leaders explained why they put the bill aside -- because Republicans had offered 120 amendments, enough to consume two weeks of debate in a legislative session that has just three weeks to go.
“The amendments that the Republicans offered were not about debating policy, not one bit. They were about killing the bill by whatever means necessary,” said House Speaker Laurie Jinkins
Republicans said they were representing the gun rights views of their constituents.
“Nobody sends us here to give up, right. They send us here to fight hard for the values that we’ve told people that we represent in elections,” said House Minority Leader J.T. Wilcox.
And the Republican leader appeared to take a jab at the new Democratic House speaker.
“And (former speaker) Frank Chopp never had trouble bringing bills to the floor that he wanted to pass,” Wilcox said.
In a surprise Thursday afternoon, Democrats revived the high-capacity magazine ban. It would limit magazines to 10 rounds.
It now includes a yearlong buy-back of high-capacity magazines. The buy-back will be funded by eliminating an old tax break on bullion, precious metal like gold or silver. That means it is now considered to be “necessary-to-implement-the-budget" and is no longer subject to Wednesday’s deadline.
“There’s no bill that has an easy route when it comes to firearms,” said Jenkins.