Cowlitz County ~ We caught up with Wally Wentz of Gators Custom Guns at the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) Meeting on November 25, 2025, and, true to his form, he’s doing his best to secure our God-Given Second Amendment Rights.
Wentz expressed his concerns about the kids’ safety classes and the local high school trap teams’ access to the Cowlitz Public Shooting Range with the new operational changes.
Commissioner Rader assured Mr. Wentz that the teams would have no interruptions in their practice schedules. Rader also added that the number of shooters using the range has declined by the thousands over the past few years, and they intend to make it a viable operation again by expanding services and hosting competitions, aiming to return it to self-sufficiency and financial stability.
Also top of mind for Mr. Wentz is his case, which is about to be reviewed by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). The Court is set to review three major Second Amendment cases on December 5, 2025, and all three cases hit at the heart of modern gun control.
This won’t be oral arguments; this is a closed-door conference to decide whether the court will take the cases, deny them, or send them back to the lower courts.
The cases the justices will discuss are:
- Gators Custom Guns v. Washington State: Defining Magazines As “Arms”. Unlike the Duncan case below, Wentz’s wasn’t decided by a federal court, but by Washington State’s Supreme Court.
This case asks a specific question: Are ammunition feeding devices that hold more than 10 rounds considered “arms” that are protected by the Second Amendment’s plain text?
That might sound technical, but it’s absolutely critical. If the Supreme Court were to say that detachable magazines are clearly part of the “arms” protected by the Second Amendment, the ruling could stop magazine bans nationwide.
2nd Amendment Rights groups call Wentz’s case an “excellent case” with the potential to stop states from treating magazines as optional accessories to be regulated away.
- Duncan v. Bonta: California’s Magazine Ban. This may sound similar to the Gators Guns case, but it addresses different questions.
Are large-capacity magazines protected by the Second Amendment, and did California violate the Takings Clause by banning lawfully owned magazines without compensation?
- Viramontes v. Cook County: The AR-15 case out of Illinois is brought by the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) and the Second Amendment Foundation (2AF).
The question in this case is: Is the right to possess AR-15-style and similar semi-automatic rifles guaranteed under the Second and Fourteenth Amendments?
2nd Amendment Rights groups say this may be the most significant case of them all, and they like that there aren’t any complicated side issues or overlapping questions. It’s basically: Are these rifles protected arms or not?
Justice Kavanaugh referenced this case when he spoke about the Court likely taking an AR-15 case in a future term. Now it’s on the conference calendar, for December 5th, as he implied.
If the Supreme Court were to take the case and rule that AR-15-style rifles are protected, that could wipe out semi-auto rifle bans nationwide.
States and counties that have tried to carve AR-15s out as somehow “extra dangerous” or “unusual” would have a hard time keeping those laws on the books.
