The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in the federal E. Barrett Prettyman courthouse in Washington on Aug. 12, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times
From our friends at The Epoch Times. View original article here.
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Federal Appeals Court Won’t Block DC Law Limiting Size of Gun Ammo Magazines
The plaintiff argued that the District’s magazine cap is unconstitutional according to a test that the Supreme Court articulated in the 2022 Bruen ruling.
10/29/2024Updated: 10/30/2024
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A federal appeals court in Washington denied a gun rights challenge on Oct. 29 to the District of Columbia’s ban on magazines with more than 10 rounds of ammunition.
Lead appellant Andrew Hanson appealed U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras’s April 20, 2023, decision that denied Hanson’s request to block the law on constitutional grounds. Contreras found that the local law adheres to the U.S. Constitution.
Hanson appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which heard arguments on Feb. 13.
On Oct. 29, a three-judge panel of the appeals court voted 2–1 to deny the appeal.
Hanson argued that the District’s magazine cap is unconstitutional according to a test the Supreme Court articulated in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), which recognizes a right to bear arms in public for self-defense.
The District enacted the Firearms Registration Act of 2008 after the Supreme Court struck down the city’s sweeping restrictions on gun ownership in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008). In Heller, the nation’s highest court found that individuals have a right to possess firearms for lawful purposes, including self-defense at home.
The act made it a felony-level offense to have a magazine that could hold more than 10 rounds. A violation can lead to a prison term of three years and a fine of $12,500.
Hanson and co-appellants Tyler Yzaguirre, Nathan Chaney, and Eric Klun, who all have concealed carry pistol licenses, possessed magazines holding more than 10 rounds outside the District of Columbia and said they would use their magazines for lawful purposes in the District if the 10-round limit did not apply.
In August 2022 after Bruen was decided, the appellants sued the District, asking for a declaration from the federal district court that the magazine cap ran afoul of the Second and Fifth Amendments.
Contreras denied Hanson’s motion for a preliminary injunction to halt the local law.
The judge found that the District’s ammo limitation, which was aimed at promoting public safety, was justified.
The ban constituted “an attempt to mitigate the carnage of mass shootings in this country.”
“Just as states and the District enacted sweeping laws restricting possession of high-capacity weapons in an attempt to reduce violence during the Prohibition era, so can the District now,” Contreras said.
The appeals court said in its new order that “the Appellants have failed to make the ‘clear showing’ required for a preliminary injunction on this early and undeveloped record.”
“Hanson is seeking at this preliminary stage a longstanding-status-quo-altering injunction that effectively gives him the full relief he would receive if he won on the merits.”
But preliminary injunctions are generally supposed to be only “a ‘stopgap measure’ … to ‘preserve the relative positions of the parties’ until trial.”
“For 15 years, District law enforcement has operated and been resourced with the magazine cap in place,” and an “'erroneously issued’ preliminary injunction suspending its law could drastically compromise the District’s ability to enforce its magazine cap far into the future” and allow the District to be inundated with large-capacity magazines during the life of the injunction, the court said.
Circuit Judge Justin Walker dissented.
In Heller, the Supreme Court determined “that the government cannot categorically ban an arm in common use for lawful purposes. Magazines holding more than ten rounds of ammunition are arms in common use for lawful purposes. Therefore, the government cannot ban them.”
Co-appellant Yzaguirre, who is president of the Second Amendment Institute, praised Walker’s dissent.
“Yet again we see how politics and personal ideologies taint the American judicial system,” he told The Epoch Times.
Even though the Bruen ruling strengthened the Second Amendment, the majority “ruled against us.”
“Thankfully, Circuit Judge Walker stuck to the Constitution and honored the Second Amendment through his well-explained dissenting opinion,” Yzaguirre said.
The Epoch Times reached out for comment to District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb but did not receive a reply by publication time.
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The District of Columbia prohibits the possession, sale or other transfer of any large capacity ammunition feeding device, regardless of whether the device is attached to a firearm. “Large capacity ammunition feeding device” is defined as a magazine, belt, drum, feed strip, or similar device that has a capacity of, or that can be readily restored or converted to accept, more than 10 rounds of ammunition.
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