{"id":109412,"date":"2025-04-18T17:17:23","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T22:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=109412"},"modified":"2025-04-18T17:17:23","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T22:17:23","slug":"109412","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=109412","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

First Circuit Upholds Massachusetts \u2018Assault Weapon,\u2019 Magazine Bans<\/a><\/p>\n

he Bay State\u2019s ban on the sale of certain semi-automatic firearms and ammunition magazines does not run afoul of the Second Amendment, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.<\/p>\n

A three-judge panel for the First Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld the denial of a preliminary injunction against Massachusetts\u2019 ban on the sale of \u201cassault weapons,\u201d such as the popular AR-15, and ammunition magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds. It determined that the logic of a\u00a0prior ruling<\/a>\u00a0upholding Rhode Island\u2019s ban on certain magazines applied to the weapons banned by Massachusetts law.<\/p>\n

\u201cA straightforward application of our prior holding in\u00a0Ocean State Tactical<\/em>\u00a0supports the Commonwealth\u2019s demonstration that the Massachusetts Ban\u2019s AR-15 restriction \u2018is consistent with the Nation\u2019s historical tradition of firearm regulation,’\u201d Judge Gary Katzmann wrote in\u00a0Capen v. Campbell<\/em><\/a>. \u201cThis means that Appellants have failed to demonstrate at this stage that the Ban is unconstitutional in all its applications.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ruling extends the unbeaten streak for states defending hardware bans at the federal appellate level ever since the Supreme Court handed down its\u00a0New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen<\/em>\u00a0decision in 2022. It will undoubtedly add to the growing sense of frustration among gun-rights advocates who believe Supreme Court precedent forecloses sales bans on common semi-automatic firearms and the magazines that come standard with them.<\/p>\n

The National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR), the plaintiff in this case, did not respond to a request for comment. The group sued over Massachusetts\u2019 bans in 2022, shortly after the High Court handed down the\u00a0<\/span>Bruen<\/span><\/em>\u00a0decision<\/span>. They were\u00a0<\/span>first upheld<\/span><\/a>\u00a0by US District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV in December 2023 after Saylor ruled that the banned items fit within the country\u2019s historical tradition of regulating \u201cdangerous and unusual\u201d weapons.<\/span><\/p>\n

Between that ruling and Thursday\u2019s update on appeal, the First Circuit issued a separate opinion upholding Rhode Island\u2019s nearly identical ban on ammunition magazines in March of 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe justification for the law is a public safety concern comparable to the concerns justifying the historical regulation of gunpowder storage and of weapons like sawed-off shotguns, Bowie knives, M-16s and the like,\u201d Judge William Kayatta wrote in\u00a0Ocean State Tactical v. Rhode Island<\/a><\/em>. \u201cThe analogical \u2018how\u2019 and \u2018why\u2019 inquiry that\u00a0Bruen<\/em>\u00a0calls for therefore strongly points in the direction of finding that Rhode Island\u2019s LCM ban does not violate the Second Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s panel said that holding controlled the outcome of the plaintiff\u2019s challenge to Massachusetts\u2019 magazine law.<\/p>\n

As for the state\u2019s ban on AR-15s and similar semi-automatic firearms, the panel said that it was appropriate to follow the same \u201cnuanced approach\u201d to the Supreme Court\u2019s Second Amendment test that it followed in the Rhode Island case.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe begin our \u2018nuanced approach\u2019 by considering whether \u2018historical precedent\u2019 from before, during, and even after the founding evinces a comparable tradition of regulation\u2019 to the Ban\u2019s AR-15 restriction,\u201d Katzmann wrote. \u201cThe metric we employ in this comparability analysis is \u2018how and why the regulations burden a law-abiding citizen\u2019s right to armed self-defense.’\u201d<\/p>\n

The panel determined that Massachusetts\u2019 AR-15 ban posed a limited burden on self-defense because the plaintiffs failed to \u201cdemonstrate a single instance where the AR-15 \u2014 or any other banned weapon \u2014 has actually been used in a self-defense scenario.\u201d By contrast, the panel said that the state\u2019s expert witnesses testified that AR-15s offer \u201climited self-defense utility\u201d because they needed to be fired with two hands and use ammunition that \u201ceasily penetrate[s] common household construction materials.\u201d<\/p>\n

The panel then said this minimal self-defense burden was comparable to the burden imposed by historical weapons regulations aimed at preventing \u201cmass deaths and violent crime unrelated to self-defense,\u201d citing the same mix of Founding Era through 20th Century gun laws as the Court in\u00a0Ocean State Tactical<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn both the \u2018how\u2019 and the \u2018why\u2019 metrics of\u00a0Bruen<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Rahimi<\/em>\u2018s\u00a0analogical inquiry, then, the Commonwealth has at least preliminarily demonstrated that the Massachusetts Ban (as it pertains to assault weapons like the AR-15) \u2018is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms,’\u201d Katzmann concluded.<\/p>\n

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell (D.) called the panel\u2019s decision \u201ca tremendous victory\u201d for the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cMassachusetts has some of the strongest common sense gun laws in the country, and we know they are effective in ensuring our communities, especially our children, remain safe,\u201d she said in a statement provided to\u00a0The Reload<\/em>. \u201cI will continue to vigorously defend these laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

The panel<\/span>\u00a0handed down its decision<\/span>\u00a0the same day the Supreme Court held its tenth conference featuring\u00a0Ocean State Tactical<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and a case against\u00a0<\/span>Maryland\u2019s<\/span><\/a>\u00a0assault weapons ban<\/span>. Should the Court agree to\u00a0<\/span>hear<\/span>\u00a0either case, it would directly impact the future of Massachusetts\u2019 related laws.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the meantime, the ruling allows Massachusetts to continue enforcing its restrictions on firearms and magazines. The plaintiffs can either appeal the decision or return to the district court to argue the case on its merits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First Circuit Upholds Massachusetts \u2018Assault Weapon,\u2019 Magazine Bans he Bay State\u2019s ban on the sale of certain semi-automatic firearms and ammunition magazines does not run afoul of the Second Amendment, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. A three-judge panel for the First Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld the denial of a preliminary injunction against … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,11,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-courts","category-crap-for-brains","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=109412"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109413,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109412\/revisions\/109413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=109412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=109412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=109412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}