Legal/Law/Criminal Justice and Reform

DC’s Gun-Magazine Ban Faces New Legal Hurdle

ajay_suresh/Flickr/Wikimedia Commons

A pro-Second Amendment group has asked a federal court to make it easier for gun owners to sue Washington, D.C., over its ban on magazines holding more than ten rounds.

The Firearms Policy Coalition asked the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Thursday to hear Wehr-Darroca v. D.C. “en banc,” meaning all active judges on the court would take part in the case. The gun rights group argued in the filing that residents should not have to show a specific threat of being arrested for violating District gun laws.

“In cases raising a pre-enforcement challenge to the constitutionality of a statute restricting firearms rights, this Court requires significantly more from Plaintiffs to establish standing than Supreme Court precedent allows,” FPC argued in its petition. “The trouble began with Navegar v. United States, which though not a Second Amendment case, presented a pre-enforcement challenge by firearms manufacturers to the federal ‘assault weapons’ ban.”

The issue of laws banning magazines that hold more than ten rounds could be decided by the Supreme Court after New Jersey appealed a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that struck down the state’s ban on modern semiautomatic firearms and magazines holding more than ten rounds.

“D.C. threatens peaceable gun owners with felony prosecution and years in prison for possessing standard firearm magazines, then hides behind a court-created rule to deny them their day in court,” FPC President Brandon Combs said in a release. “That is a disgraceful constitutional Catch-22. The government does not get to tell Americans they must either surrender their rights or risk prison just to challenge an unconstitutional law. The Second Amendment is not a second-class right, and gun owners are not second-class citizens. We’re demanding that the D.C. Circuit end this absurd exception, open the courthouse doors, and let us fight D.C.’s immoral magazine ban on the merits.”

The Third Circuit’s ruling created a “circuit split” with the Ninth Circuit, which upheld Duncan v. Bonta, a challenge to California’s ban on magazines holding more than ten rounds. “Circuit splits” occur when federal appeals courts disagree on rulings, making it more likely the Supreme Court will hear the case. The Supreme Court considered taking up Duncan v. Bonta for over 24 conferences since the petition arrived at the high court, a record, but had not announced a decision about whether it would take the case as of Tuesday.

“The District has never disavowed enforcement of its ban on ammunition magazines, and Plaintiffs have alleged that they would, if not for their reasonable fear that violating the law could subject them to criminal penalties and outright disarmament, possess magazines larger than D.C. allows,” FPC said in a