Appeals Court Upholds DC’s Magazine Capacity Ban

Last updated on October 29th, 2024 at 02:08 pm

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in favor of Washington D.C.’s magazine capacity limit on Oct. 29.

Gun rights advocates had challenged the D.C. law, which bars access to magazines capable of carrying more than 10 rounds of ammunition. The D.C. law refers to magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds as “extra-large capacity magazine” (ELCM) devices.

The gun rights advocates challenged the constitutionality of the law, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen.

In Bruen, the Supreme Court’s majority held that, “When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. The government must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

In an April 2023 ruling, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras rejected the plaintiffs’ initial motion for a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of the D.C. law. Lead plaintiff Andrew Hanson appealed the district court’s decision, with support from fellow plaintiffs Tyler Yzaguirre, Nathan Chaney, and Eric Klun.

The three-judge panel on the appeals court ruled 2-1 against the appeal on Oct. 29. Circuit Judge Patricia Millett, an appointee of former President Barack Obama; and Senior Circuit Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan, wrote the majority opinion.

The plaintiffs noted multiple examples of historical firearms capable of being loaded with more than 10 rounds, which were invented in and around the time of America’s founding, and which were not prohibited in the time they were invented day. Those firearms included the Girandoni air rifle, the crank-powered Puckle gun, and the Winchester Repeater lever-action rifle, among others.

The appeals court’s majority challenged the firearms examples presented by the plaintiffs, arguing that the firearms they noted were not in common enough use or were not sufficiently similar to a modern semi-automatic firearm capable of being loaded with an ELCM.

“Hanson also argues the Winchester Repeater rifle of 1866 is analogous to an ELCM. Although it had a magazine capable of firing more than ten rounds without reloading, it required manual manipulation of a lever in between each shot,” the majority wrote. “The magazine was also exposed, which made it susceptible to jamming. For this reason, the rifle lacks the potential lethality of a modern weapon equipped with an ELCM.”

Circuit Judge Justin R. Walker, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, wrote the dissenting opinion. There, he argued D.C.’s current magazine capacity limit is unconstitutional per the precendent set by the U.S. Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller, regardless of the discussion of the commonality and comparability of historical firearms to modern ones.

“In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held 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,” Walker wrote. “Therefore, the government cannot ban them.”

Gun rights activist and attorney Kostas Moros criticized the appeals court’s majority for taking too dismissive an attitude of the historical firearms the plaintiffs pointed to when arguing their case.

“So for the State, their comparisons get this endlessly loose historical standard. But litigants’ historical comparisons have to be exact dead ringer,” Moros wrote following the court’s ruling.

Noting the court’s dismissal of the Winchester Repeater as a sufficient historical analog, Moros wrote, “The Court is basically demanding the Plaintiff present a historical example of a semiauto rifle with a magazine of over ten rounds in the 19th century. But the government gets to point to bowie knife carry bans.”

Other appeals courts have weighed magazine capacity limit laws. Moros credited the D.C. Circuit panel’s majority for at least differing from and potentially undermining other appeals courts that have ruled in favor of such magazine laws.

“So far, this is the best bad ruling I’ve read in the post-Bruen era. It is at least knocking out several bad arguments that other antigun courts have accepted in bad faith,” he wrote.