{"id":96392,"date":"2023-09-29T16:01:02","date_gmt":"2023-09-29T21:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=96392"},"modified":"2023-09-29T16:04:54","modified_gmt":"2023-09-29T21:04:54","slug":"96392","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=96392","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Magazines are as much a part of a gun as ammo and other accoutrements, and are just as protected from goobermint restriction. The 2nd amendment is not an ‘allowance’, or ‘permission’ to keep and bear arms.
\nIt restricts goobermint<\/strong>,<\/em> not the people.
\nJudges, legislators and bureaucraps who think otherwise are nothing but clear domestic enemies of the Constitution, which the Bill of Rights is part.<\/p>\n

\n

BLUF
\nNevertheless, it has become abundantly clear that whether or not a judge is sympathetic to the idea that magazines are \u201carms\u201d is the most relevant dividing line in this hotly contested slice of Second Amendment jurisprudence. It will undoubtedly be the hinge point in many future rulings as these bans continue to be litigated.<\/p>\n

Analysis: Judges Diverge on Whether Second Amendment Protects Ammo Magazines<\/a><\/p>\n

Are ammunition magazines constitutionally protected arms? Or are they simply accessories incidental to the weapons covered under the Second Amendment?<\/p>\n

Different judges have reached wildly different conclusions since the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in\u00a0<\/span>NYSRPA v. Bruen<\/span><\/em>\u00a0last June, particularly regarding the so-called large capacity magazines often banned in blue states. It is no surprise then that the outcomes of the various legal challenges taking aim at those prohibitions have primarily been settled depending on which side a particular judge falls on this very question.\u00a0<\/span>Two major decisions handed down in the last week demonstrate this.<\/p>\n

Last Friday, U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez\u00a0struck down<\/a>\u00a0California\u2019s ban on ammunition magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case is about a California state law that makes it a crime to keep and bear common firearm magazines typically possessed for lawful purposes,\u201d Judge Benitez\u00a0wrote in\u00a0<\/a>Duncan v. Bonta.<\/em>\u00a0\u201cBased on the text, history, and tradition of the Second Amendment, this law is clearly unconstitutional.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just three days later, U.S. District Judge Mary Dimke\u00a0<\/span>upheld<\/span><\/a>\u00a0Washington state\u2019s nearly identical magazine ban.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt present, the evidence in the record is insufficient to establish that Plaintiffs are likely to prove that large capacity magazines fall within the Second Amendment right,\u201d Judge Dimke wrote\u00a0in\u00a0Brumback v. Ferguson<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Benitez argued that ammunition magazines are part and parcel of the functional operation of a firearm, which themselves are self-evidently \u201carms.\u201d Therefore, the magazines themselves constitute arms in the same way for the purposes of the plain text of the Second Amendment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the Second Amendment does not explicitly mention ammunition or magazines supplying ammunition, \u2018without bullets, the right to bear arms would be meaningless,’\u201d Benitez wrote. \u201cThis is because the right to keep firearms for protection implies a corresponding right to obtain the bullets necessary to use them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBy extension, \u2018arms\u2019 includes the magazine component necessary to supply the bullet into the chamber of the gun,\u201d he added. \u201cConsequently, whether thought of as a firearm able to fire a certain number of rounds because of its inserted magazine, or as a separate ammunition feeding component, magazines are usable \u2018arms\u2019 within the meaning of the Second Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, Benitez continued his\u00a0Bruen<\/em>\u00a0analysis by reviewing the ban in light of the country\u2019s historical tradition of arms regulation between the Founding Era and Reconstruction\u2014ultimately dealing it a fatal blow.<\/p>\n

Dimke, on the other hand, took a narrower reading of a particular historical definition of the word \u201carm\u201d and concluded that magazines on their own did not fit the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cA magazine is a part of a firearm, rather than a \u2018weapon[] of offence, or armour of defence,\u2019 or a \u2018thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another,’\u201d Dimke wrote, citing a definition of \u201carms\u201d used in the Supreme Court\u2019s\u00a0Heller<\/em>\u00a0decision. \u201cOn its own, it cannot be used to attack or defend; a magazine with increased capacity simply reduces the frequency of reloads required when discharging a firearm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once Dimke determined that magazines fell outside the scope of the Second Amendment\u2019s text, her analysis was essentially complete\u2014at least for the purposes of deciding whether to issue a preliminary injunction\u2014and Washington\u2019s ban was allowed to stand.<\/p>\n

But even beyond the two most recent rulings, whether magazines are considered \u201carms\u201d has thus far served as the critical juncture in several other federal decisions examining magazine bans after\u00a0<\/span>Bruen<\/span><\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before ultimately blocking Illinois\u2019 ban on certain magazines and semi-automatic weapons, U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn sided with Benitez\u2019s understanding of the question.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis Court agrees that magazines are \u2018arms\u2019 as used in the plain text of the Second Amendment,\u201d he wrote. \u201cPlaintiffs are correct that \u2018[t]his is not even a close call.\u2019 If Defendants\u2019 own expert incorporates magazine capacity into his definition of a firearm, given his level of expertise, it would be unreasonable to expect the original public meaning of the plain text to not reflect a similar understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, federal judges reviewing similar magazine bans in\u00a0<\/span>Oregon<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Rhode Island<\/span><\/a>\u00a0upheld those states\u2019 bans after ruling that the text did not apply to large capacity magazines.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn sum, the evidence at trial shows that while magazines may be necessary to render firearms operable, [large capacity magazines<\/span>], as a subset of magazines, are never necessary to render firearms operable,\u201d Judge Karin Immergut\u00a0wrote in\u00a0Oregon Firearms Federation v. Kotek<\/em><\/a>. \u201cAccordingly, this Court finds that [large capacity magazines<\/span>] are not \u2018bearable arms\u2019 as that term is used in Second Amendment jurisprudence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe plaintiffs have failed in their burden to demonstrate that [large capacity magazines]<\/span>\u00a0are \u2018Arms\u2019 within the meaning of the Second Amendment\u2019s text,\u201d Judge John McConnell wrote in\u00a0Ocean State Tactical v. Rhode Island<\/a><\/em>. \u201c[T]he word \u2018Arms\u2019 was a general term for weapons such as swords, knives, rifles, and pistols, but it did not include ammunition, ammunition containers, flints, scabbards, holsters, or \u2018parts\u2019 of a weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n

To be sure, whether certain magazines meet the definition of \u201carms\u201d as used in the Second Amendment is not the sole dispositive factor in deciding whether bans on them can pass constitutional muster. Indeed, federal judges in\u00a0Connecticut<\/a>,\u00a0Delaware<\/a>, and\u00a0Washington D.C.<\/a>\u00a0all upheld magazine bans despite finding that they constituted \u201carms\u201d under the Second Amendment, either by determining that they were not \u201cin common use\u201d for self-defense or because they represent a \u201cdramatic technological change and unprecedented societal concerns for public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, it has become abundantly clear that whether or not a judge is sympathetic to the idea that magazines are \u201carms\u201d is the most relevant dividing line in this hotly contested slice of Second Amendment jurisprudence. It will undoubtedly be the hinge point in many future rulings as these bans continue to be litigated.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Magazines are as much a part of a gun as ammo and other accoutrements, and are just as protected from goobermint restriction. The 2nd amendment is not an ‘allowance’, or ‘permission’ to keep and bear arms. It restricts goobermint, not the people. Judges, legislators and bureaucraps who think otherwise are nothing but clear domestic enemies … 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-96392","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\/96392","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=96392"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96396,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96392\/revisions\/96396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}