Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson was on the losing side in a significant Second Amendment case in Minnesota when a three-judge panel ruled unanimously in favor of the plaintiffs, including the Second Amendment Foundation, in a case affirming that Minnesota’s ban on concealed carry by young adults is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.
Ferguson has boasted he has never lost a Second Amendment case, but he was among 20 attorneys general submitting an amicus brief supporting the state prohibition, which the appeals court panel unanimously ruled was unconstitutional. The case is known as Worth v. Jacobson. SAF is joined by the Firearms Policy Coalition, Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus and four citizens, Austin Dye, Alex Anderson, Joe Knudsen and Kristin Worth, for whom the case is known.
“This isn’t the first time Ferguson has been on the losing side in a SAF case challenging a gun prohibition for young adults,” SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb recalled. “His team also lost back in March in the case of Lara v. Evanchick, which challenges Pennsylvania’s prohibition against young adults in the 18- to 20-year-old category from carrying firearms for personal protection.
“Indeed,” Gottlieb continued, “Ferguson seems to be on the wrong side consistently when it comes to gun control, and specifically when it involves the rights of young adults. When he could be on the right side, as in our lawsuit challenging outright violations of Washington State’s firearms preemption statute by the City of Edmonds, he didn’t even take action to defend the 40-year-old law. Instead, we had to do his job and we won a unanimous ruling from the State Supreme Court in April 2022 while Ferguson and the Attorney General’s office were AWOL.”
SAF is presently challenging two gun control laws Ferguson supported in Washington, a ban on so-called “assault weapons” in a case known as Hartford v. Ferguson, and a second case challenging the ban on “large capacity magazines” known as Sullivan v. Ferguson.
“Ferguson, while running for governor, has falsely claimed that his office has never lost a case to the Second Amendment Foundation,” Gottlieb concluded.
The Second Amendment Foundation (saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, SAF has grown to more than 720,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.
