B.L.U.F. — Judge Rudolph Contreras believes that banning magazines with more than some magic number is constitutional. This leads to another WTF post analysis of a Judge’s opinion.

The Question

Is D.C.’s LCM ban Constitutional?

The ban basically says that it is illegal to possess, sell, or transfer — D.C. Code § 7-2506.01(b) a magazine that holds more than 10 rounds. The exception is for tube feed .22 caliber magazines.

Background

This duffus had to go out and find another judge who is just as ignorant as he is in order to make a statement as stupid as saying that attaching a “large capacity magazine” to a handgun makes it into a semiautomatic.

He is quoting the memorandum and opinion out of the District Court of Rhode Island. He had this to say about an “LCM” challenge.

Judge John J. McConnell, Jr, chief judge of the District Court of Rhode Island

The Supreme Court has not said anything about magazines being arms, which is what allows this level of disingenuous reasoning. Regardless, reading the Ocean State Tactical opinion was an exercise in self-control. Breaking monitors does not do any good. As Mark Smith said in a video the other day, when the Judge is a Firearms person, it shows. In the same way, when a Judge is ignorant of even the most basic aspects of a firearm, we get hurt.

It is easy to tell when the state is lying when you have personal knowledge of the subject, it is harder when you are trying to figure out whose experts to trust.

Standing

As always, the state attempts to get a challenge thrown out in any way possible. Standing is always the first attack. In this case, according to the Court, the plaintiffs didn’t do an impressive job of addressing standing and the state didn’t do anything. Still, the Court decided that there was standing for the plaintiffs.

The reason for standing? [T]he Court finds that at least one Plaintiff, Tyler Yzaguirre, has demonstrated a substantial likelihood of standing because he was denied registration for a firearm on the ground that its magazine had a 12-round capacity…— Hanson v. D.C at 10

It sounds as if the Court would not have found there was standing if not for that one plaintiff attempting to register a firearm. The fact that Rhode Island requires a registration is just another reason to hate infringing states.

Merits

The Court then proceeds to discuss how Bruen works, correctly. Then poses the question of merits.

I’m getting whiplash here. In the quote paragraph, the Court says that LCM’s are NOT arms under the Second Amendment right, but on page 14 says they are?

And here it is, this court is quoting from Heller II where the Circuit Court Recognize that whether LCMs are “in common use” is merely the beginning of the analysis.— Id. At 15. This Court goes on to say The full inquiry is “whether the prohibited weapons are ‘typically possessed … for lawful purposes.’” — Id. At 15 quoting Heller II

So, there is the first step. Are they in common use? Well, yes they are.

But are they in common use for lawful purposes? Well, yes they are.

But are they in common use for self-defense?

The Court isn’t sure.

This is one of the big games we see happening. The state constantly tries to change the criteria from “in common use” to “in common use for self-defense” and continues to define “use for self-defense” to mean actually using or firing the weapon.

In addition, they often times argue that the plaintiffs have to prove “in common use for self-defense” for each particular model. So while they might agree that AR-15 style firearms are in common use, they will argue that your particular make and model are not because only a few dozen were ever manufactured.

I do not care if something has military characteristics. The government doesn’t get to tell me what is a good fit for me. In Heller the Supreme Court said as much: It is enough to note, as we have observed, that the American people have considered the handgun to be the quintessential self-defense weapon. — Heller at 2818 This means that we, The People, get to decide if something is a good or poor fit for our needs, not the state.

This is the same as the state telling us that we have to use a particular soap, for reasons.

Finally, the state, and Court, descend to saying that because civilians are have better fire discipline than cops, they shouldn’t be allowed to have “LCM”s.

We have the Court conflating “in common use” with “fired in self-defense” and the Court now goes on to say that since Heller mentioned weapons that are most useful in military service such as M-16s, if something else is useful in military service, it too is like an M-16.

I wonder if that means my military issue packs, webbing, and multi-tool can all be banned because they are “most useful in military service”.

In Miller the Supreme Court found that an SBS was not protected by the Second Amendment because nobody had told them the military used it. This Court is saying in one place that Heller didn’t change Miller but here says that Heller turned Miller upside down to man that arms that are most useful in military service are excluded.

Here is where we find the issue. Another reference to Kolbe v. Hogan. This case is still used as “good law” even though the Supreme Court GVR’d a case back to the Fourth Circuit because it depended on the two-step shuffle of Kolbe.

Conclusion

That takes us to page 21 of 40. I’m stopping there. This judge managed to argue that LCMs are not arms under the Second Amendment because the military likes them and that civilians don’t shoot as badly as cops.