Thread by @MorosKostas

I've generally stopped doing threads on hardware rulings, because they are basically the same trash bad-faith analysis over and over again:

1. Declare that the guns or magazines at issue are not "arms."

2. Even if they are arms, banning them is analogous to pre-1900 restrictions on the concealed carry of certain weapons like bowie knives.

But since it's been a while since I've done such a thread, and the Washington v. Gator's Custom Guns ruling is short, I'll do a thread on it to shake off the rust.

This is a Washington State Supreme Court case about the state's magazine capacity law banning magazines of over ten rounds. It is not a federal case. However, the analytical flaws are the same.

Right from the start, they are unjustifiably limiting the scope of the right. The Second Amendment is NOT just about personal self-defense, and the language from the Supreme Court is that arms commonly used for lawful purposes are protected.

While magazines over ten rounds are commonly used for self-defense as millions of people carry such magazines daily, they are also used for target shooting, competitions, and in an extreme scenario, they would be used to resist foreign invaders or tyrant's armies.

Another tactic: get antigun academics to lend their credentials to utter bullshit, which antigun judges eat right up because a "Professor" said it.

In this case, Baron is smart enough to know that cartridge boxes are not the historical analog to magazines. Cartridge boxes still exist today. The analog to magazines today is....fixed magazines and cylinders in repeating rifles and revolvers. The fact that they are removable today does not make them not an "arm," nor does it make them just a mere cartridge box.

They are arms because they are undoubtedly part of the “weapon of offence” that a person “takes into his
hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another.” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 581 (2008) (citing founding-era dictionaries).

By the logic of the court here, no part of the gun except maybe the frame, the barrel, the trigger mechanism, and the firing pin are "arms."

Sights, stocks, grips, everything else that makes a gun actually usable? Not an "arm", and unprotected. Again, this goes against the express language of Heller, which said that “the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding,” and the Court interpreted “arms” to include “‘any thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another.’” 554 U.S. at 582, 581 (quoting 1 TIMOTHY CUNNINGHAM, A NEW AND COMPLETE LAW DICTIONARY (1771)).

Magazines plainly fit this description.

The next absurdity common in magazine cases. "Alright we admit some magazine is necessary, but it doesn't have to have more than ten rounds!"

By that logic, a one-round magazine is all that is protected. There is no other way to justify a ten-round limit that isn't forbidden interest balancing.

Another trend in these cases is the Court clutching its pearls that if it accepted the plaintiffs' arguments, government would be extremely limited in what laws it could pass to restrict guns! 😯

Wow, it's almost like the dumb plaintiffs think this is a constitutional right that "shall not be infringed," and is supposed to be very hard to limit!

This footnote is enraging to me because they say that magazines are not arms in part because the GCA does not define them as firearms.

But when suppressors are at issue, antigun courts and the government always argue it doesn't matter that the GCA considers them firearms!

Again, what is protected is all lawful purposes. Not only self-defense.

Also, LCMs demonstrably ARE carried daily for self-defense, as tons of handguns come standard with magazines of over ten rounds.

The antigun courts always think this is some kind of big dunk.

But it would be completely fucking ABSURD to the founding era if you told them that the Second Amendment did not protect arms useful to combat. That was the whole point! Personal self-defense was a lawful purpose too and protected, but ancillary.

See my article on this topic: scholarship.law.uwyo.edu/wlr/vol24/iss1…

"Central" does not mean "exclusive," yet all the antigun courts seem to think it does.

(They don't actually think that, they are just shameless hacks.)

This is naked interest-balancing, as put in other words, the Court is saying that the burden of the capacity limit is no big deal, because people can still have magazines of up to 10 rounds to defend themselves with.

This is exactly what Bruen said NOT to do. Until SCOTUS stops being cowardly/lazy and enforces its precedent though, it won't matter, and they will keep getting away with it. The hacks are ascendant, and there are now two Second Amendments in this country. One very limited and oft-violated right for the antigun circuits and states, and another expansive right that is far closer to the historical tradition for the red states and conservative circuits.

I have an impatient toddler so I won't go through the dissents right now, but may give the highlights later. I am sure they are excellent.