{"id":111666,"date":"2025-08-16T16:05:35","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T21:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=111666"},"modified":"2025-08-16T16:05:35","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T21:05:35","slug":"111666","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=111666","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Supreme Court Being Asked to Hear Magazine Capacity Case<\/a><\/p>\n

California\u2019s magazine capacity limitation law from 2000 has been under fire for several years. In 2016, the law was supersized, completely banning magazines that hold over 10 rounds. Formerly petitioned to the Supreme Court of the United States, Duncan v. Bonta was granted, vacated, and remanded to the lower court in the wake of NYSRPA v. Bruen. The National Rifle Association-backed case has returned to SCOTUS and they\u2019ve filed\u00a0a petition for a writ of certiorari<\/a>\u00a0on August 15, 2025.<\/p>\n

Named plaintiffs Virginia Duncan, Richard Lewis, Patrick Lovette, David Marguglio, and Christopher Waddell are joined by California Rifle and Pistol Association in this challenge. The petition was filed by the powerhouse firm Clement & Murphy, with Paul D. Clement and Erin E. Murphy listed as the counsels of record.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince 2000, California has prohibited the manufacture, import, sale, and transfer of \u2018large-capacity magazines,\u2019 defined by the state as \u2018any ammunition feeding device with the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds.\u2019 In 2016, the state banned the possession of such magazines, and required any lawfully possessed magazine to be surrendered, permanently altered, or destroyed,\u201d the National Rifle Association said in a\u00a0release<\/a>. \u201cThis lawsuit was filed before the possession ban took effect, alleging that it violates the Second Amendment and the Fifth Amendment\u2019s Takings Clause.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the\u00a0petition<\/a>, Clement and Murphy laid out the history of the case, asserting that \u201cit should have been easy to see that California’s ban on feeding devices that can accept more than ten rounds of ammunition violates the Second Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the district court, that was indeed easy to see. But the Ninth Circuit would have none of it. The court bypassed the ordinary panel-review process, reconvened an en banc panel that now consisted mostly of judges not in active service, granted \u201cemergency\u201d relief to the state over the dissent of most of the active judges on that panel, and ultimately held that California\u2019s sweeping and confiscatory ban on some of the most common arms in America does not even implicate the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Executive Vice President Doug Hamlin of the NRA weighed in on the filing. \u201cTens of millions of Americans lawfully own hundreds of millions of the magazines that California bans,\u201d said Hamlin. \u201cThe Supreme Court should take this case to vindicate the rights of Californians and reaffirm that the Second Amendment prohibits the government from banning common arms.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the filing, they further argue that the 9th Circuit erred in their decisions. They state that the 9th\u2019s decision can\u2019t \u201cbe reconciled with this Court\u2019s precedents or the constitutional traditions.\u201d And, they observed that the circuit court professed \u201csurface-level adherence to Heller, Bruen, and Rahimi\u201d but \u201cultimately cast those decisions aside, pawning off interest-balancing as careful consideration of constitutional text and historical tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n

On behalf of the litigation arm of the Association \u2014 the NRA Institute for Legislative Action \u2014 Executive Director John Commerford said that: \u201cAfter nearly a decade of litigation, two en banc decisions, and a prior remand from the Supreme Court, this case is more than ready for the Court\u2019s review.\u201d Commerford continued, \u201cthe people of California have endured long enough\u201d and that \u201cit\u2019s time to restore their constitutional rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

The frenzy of post-Bruen<\/em>\u00a0grant, vacate, and remands that occurred in 2022 are coming home to roost.\u00a0Snope v. Brown<\/em>\u00a0out of Maryland was one such GVRed case that was\u00a0denied certiorari<\/a>\u00a0when represented to the High Court.\u00a0Snope<\/em>\u00a0did not deal with magazine capacity restrictions, but rather so-called \u201cassault weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n

The magazine question in\u00a0Duncan<\/em>, which affects Heller-protected handguns, could be the stepping stone SCOTUS uses to get back to the topic of semi-automatic rifle prohibitions.<\/p>\n

A New Jersey case, also NRA backed \u2014\u00a0ANJRPC v. Platkin<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/em>\u2014 was also in the batch of punted cases. Like\u00a0Duncan<\/em>, it concerns magazine capacity and is sitting at the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in a post-argument state. (ANJRPC<\/em>\u00a0has been consolidated with two semi-automatic rifle ban challenges and that might be an interesting twist in the prevailing days).<\/p>\n

Will the High Court pick\u00a0Duncan v. Bonta<\/em>\u00a0as the case to settle the debate on magazine capacity restrictions? Possibly. Or, is it more likely the justices wait out for an opinion from the Third Circuit on the New Jersey case in hopes that there\u2019s a split? We\u2019ll be watching the Supreme Court\u2019s calendar when the session starts to see if\u00a0Duncan<\/em>\u00a0makes the cut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Supreme Court Being Asked to Hear Magazine Capacity Case California\u2019s magazine capacity limitation law from 2000 has been under fire for several years. In 2016, the law was supersized, completely banning magazines that hold over 10 rounds. Formerly petitioned to the Supreme Court of the United States, Duncan v. Bonta was granted, vacated, and remanded … 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":[23,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-courts","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111666","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=111666"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111667,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111666\/revisions\/111667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}