Just filed our final responsive brief in Duncan. Benitez should rule on this in the coming weeks.
Some highlights in this thread, starting with how the state basically threw everything at the wall, because it had no historical law to point to pertaining to magazine capacity.
The State tried to straddle the line on whether or not magazines are arms, arguing that while some magazine is necessary for many firearms to function, it doesn't need to be one of over ten rounds. And because of that, the Second Amendment is not implicated at all.
This is a brazen attempt by the government to re-insert interest balancing under the guise of a plain text analysis.
Trying to sneak in Sweeney and Tucker's declarations from other cases was a lame move. And the latter, Colonel Tucker, is a joke.
"14 or more killed" is a very strange metric indeed. I bet the State's lawyers saw that there was a mass shooting with 13 killed that didn't involved so-called "LCMs", so they set the line at 14. But according to the reporting, the Parkland shooter used ten round magazines too.
If states had regulated repeating arms when they came onto the scene, California would have had a great analogue. But they didn't.
Because they didn't, the State bizarrely argues that some of the most iconic guns of the era were uncommon. K.
A common refrain from the State is that "experts" like Saul Cornell should be allowed to tell us what laws the founders would have accepted. This is utter BS.
We basically always insert something like this now so @fourboxesdiner doesn't yell at us 🤣
This bit right here is completely outrageous to me. It is absolutely preposterous for a judge to redirect federal spending against what congress appropriated it for.
Why even have a separation of powers? Hell, the judge may as well order Congress to end the shutdown on his precise terms. What would be the difference? He is already taking over the power of the purse with this order.
I don't even think it was right for the judge to order the spending of the very limited contingency funds, as judges should not get to decide how money designated for an emergency gets spent.
However, at least that point was arguable. The further step he took was baseless and constitution-torching.
I hope the Supreme Court intervenes on this. I wish @AGPamBondi and team the best of luck.
Shutdowns are a high-stakes political game. If you are going to keep the government shutdown, it can't be the case that you get to run to courts and have your priorities ordered to be funded.
Congress has not appropriated more money for SNAP. The program basically doesn't exist until they do. Federal judges should not get to order it back into existence.
California just filed its opposition to the cert petition in Duncan, let's see what they argue. A thread on the brief.
"May acquire as many approved firearms as they want" is a funny point, because it has only been true for a few months since California lost in Nguyen. California was trying to limit us to one gun per month.
As is always the case, antigunners want very expansive definitions of mass shootings EXCEPT when arguing to uphold AWBs and mag limits, then all of a sudden they want to limit it to the worst (and most rare) mass shootings. The GVA definition goes out the window immediately.
This local news segment is funny because Sheriff Luna ADMITS they have been making people wait too long, while in their official PR statements, they are denying that.
He says:
"I wish we didn't have to make people wait too long, but we've got to do it right, I don't want to be issuing CCWs to people who shouldn't have them."
Also, his point is nonsense.
He could simply require a livescan and a training course, and skip the rest. That's what every other state does (some don't even have the training course) and yet they have no issue with people with CCW permits committing lots of crimes. In fact, they rarely ever do.
An idea for the Trump admin: consider restoring the Civilian Marksmanship Program.
It started over a century ago as a way to make sure the populace in a rapidly urbanizing country stayed proficient in marksmanship by providing affordable modern firearms to those interested in learning.
Today, while it still does some good work with competitions and youth shooting sports, it seems to be a shell of its former self, and the guns offered are all ancient. It's a way for collectors to get old rifles as auction items and buy military-issued 1911s for over $1000, basically.
It's also kind of outrageous that it is limited by state laws, and that should end. For example, the website says they can't ship 1911s to Massachusetts as state law won't allow it. The whole point of the CMP was to help ensure a competently armed populace, but states can undermine that?
A revitalized Civilian Marksmanship program would be better funded, have a presence in public high schools where it could teach gun safety and responsibility, and sell more modern surplus firearms at affordable prices to Americans in every state (as it should be exempt or preempt from any state laws).
As some pointed out below, CMP also sells $500 1911s made more recently, but those are no available in Massachusetts, California, or even DC due to state and local laws in each.
That's just absurd. Those state laws shouldn't exist in the first place, but even given they do, the CMP should absolutely be exempt. Especially in the literal capital city! Congress should immediately nullify any DC laws on this.
Not counting air rifles, the most modern rifles they sell date back to WW2 era.
No reason they should not be offering more modern surplus guns.
Garands and M1 Carbines are very, very cool. But they are not what a modern citizen in 2025 looks to buy to become a proficient marksman.
The CMP should not be a niche program for collectors. That's not why it was created. It's fine if it's also that, but not only that.
Today the Sixth Circuit ruled on a machine gun case. In this thread I'll take a look at the relatively short majority opinion and skim the longer concurrence as well.
The panel is a Reagan, Bush, and Trump judge. They seem to have ruled that while machine guns are "arms" under the Second Amendment, restrictions on them are nonetheless constitutional. Let's see what the reasoning is.
Ah yes, another example of "bad facts make bad law."
Very hard to win these cases when the criminal defendant making the Second Amendment claim is someone who tried to kill police officers.
The "machine gun" in this case was a Glock switch.
Here is where we start to run into the limits of the "common use" standard. While it is enough to stop bans on common semiautomatic rifles (if SCOTUS ever enforces its own precedent, that is), it leaves us high and dry on machine guns.
They can't enter common use because the government made them prohibitively expensive, and then in 1986 banned them even if registered. You can only get pre-1986 machine guns, and those cost tens of thousands of dollars. The government essentially stopped them from being in common use.
In one of the only correct things the Seventh Circuit has ever said on 2A, “It [is] absurd to say that the reason why a particular weapon can be banned is that there is a statute banning it so that it isn’t commonly owned. A law’s existence can’t be the source of its own constitutional validity.” Friedman v. City of Highland Park, 784 F.3d 406, 409 (7th Cir. 2015).
At least with SBRs and suppressors, there is no Hughes Amendment so people have still bought lots of them despite NFA tax and registration. Machine guns didn't get that chance.
The Third Circuit released its ruling in US v. Harris, a case concerning 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(3) and its intersection with marijuana usage.
Second Amendment Foundation has a pending lawsuit on a similar issue called Greene v. Garland, which deals with individuals who use medical marijuana, so I thought I'd take a look at what the Court said in Harris. A thread.
Before I begin, you can see more about @2AFDN's case Greene v. Garland here:
As is often the case with these sorts of criminal matters, the criminal defendant often isn't the model of good behavior, so you run into the "bad facts make bad law" scenario frequently.