First Circuit Upholds Massachusetts ‘Assault Weapon,’ Magazine Bans

The Bay State’s ban on the sale of sure semi-automatic firearms and ammunition magazines doesn’t run afoul of the Second Modification, a federal appeals court docket dominated Thursday.

A 3-judge panel for the First Circuit Courtroom of Appeals unanimously upheld the denial of a preliminary injunction towards Massachusetts’ ban on the sale of “assault weapons,” equivalent to the favored AR-15, and ammunition magazines able to holding greater than ten rounds. It decided that the logic of a previous ruling upholding Rhode Island’s ban on sure magazines utilized to the weapons banned by Massachusetts legislation.

“A simple utility of our prior holding in Ocean State Tactical helps the Commonwealth’s demonstration that the Massachusetts Ban’s AR-15 restriction ‘is according to the Nation’s historic custom of firearm regulation,’” Decide Gary Katzmann wrote in Capen v. Campbell. “Which means that Appellants have didn’t display at this stage that the Ban is unconstitutional in all its functions.”

The ruling extends the unbeaten streak for states defending {hardware} bans on the federal appellate stage ever because the Supreme Courtroom handed down its New York State Rifle and Pistol Affiliation v. Bruen resolution in 2022. It’ll undoubtedly add to the rising sense of frustration amongst gun-rights advocates who imagine Supreme Courtroom precedent forecloses gross sales bans on frequent semi-automatic firearms and the magazines that come normal with them.

The Nationwide Affiliation for Gun Rights (NAGR), the plaintiff on this case, didn’t reply to a request for remark. The group sued over Massachusetts’ bans in 2022, shortly after the Excessive Courtroom handed down the Bruen resolution. They have been first upheld by US District Decide F. Dennis Saylor IV in December 2023 after Saylor dominated that the banned objects match inside the nation’s historic custom of regulating “harmful and weird” weapons.

Between that ruling and Thursday’s replace on enchantment, the First Circuit issued a separate opinion upholding Rhode Island’s practically similar ban on ammunition magazines in March of 2024.

“The justification for the legislation is a public security concern akin to the issues justifying the historic regulation of gunpowder storage and of weapons like sawed-off shotguns, Bowie knives, M-16s and the like,” Decide William Kayatta wrote in Ocean State Tactical v. Rhode Island. “The analogical ‘how’ and ‘why’ inquiry that Bruen requires subsequently strongly factors within the route of discovering that Rhode Island’s LCM ban doesn’t violate the Second Modification.”

Thursday’s panel mentioned that holding managed the result of the plaintiff’s problem to Massachusetts’ journal legislation.

As for the state’s ban on AR-15s and related semi-automatic firearms, the panel mentioned that it was applicable to observe the identical “nuanced strategy” to the Supreme Courtroom’s Second Modification check that it adopted within the Rhode Island case.

“We start our ‘nuanced strategy’ by contemplating whether or not ‘historic precedent’ from earlier than, throughout, and even after the founding evinces a comparable custom of regulation’ to the Ban’s AR-15 restriction,” Katzmann wrote. “The metric we make use of on this comparability evaluation is ‘how and why the laws burden a law-abiding citizen’s proper to armed self-defense.’”

The panel decided that Massachusetts’ AR-15 ban posed a restricted burden on self-defense as a result of the plaintiffs didn’t “display a single occasion the place the AR-15 — or another banned weapon — has really been utilized in a self-defense state of affairs.” In contrast, the panel mentioned that the state’s knowledgeable witnesses testified that AR-15s supply “restricted self-defense utility” as a result of they wanted to be fired with two palms and use ammunition that “simply penetrate[s] frequent family development supplies.”

The panel then mentioned this minimal self-defense burden was akin to the burden imposed by historic weapons laws geared toward stopping “mass deaths and violent crime unrelated to self-defense,” citing the identical mixture of Founding Period via twentieth Century gun legal guidelines because the Courtroom in Ocean State Tactical.

“On each the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ metrics of Bruen and Rahimi‘s analogical inquiry, then, the Commonwealth has a minimum of preliminarily demonstrated that the Massachusetts Ban (because it pertains to assault weapons just like the AR-15) ‘is a part of the historic custom that delimits the outer bounds of the precise to maintain and bear arms,’” Katzmann concluded.

Massachusetts Legal professional Basic Andrea Pleasure Campbell (D.) referred to as the panel’s resolution “an incredible victory” for the state.

“Massachusetts has a number of the strongest frequent sense gun legal guidelines within the nation, and we all know they’re efficient in making certain our communities, particularly our youngsters, stay protected,” she mentioned in an announcement supplied to The Reload. “I’ll proceed to vigorously defend these legal guidelines.”

The panel handed down its resolution the identical day the Supreme Courtroom held its tenth convention that includes Ocean State Tactical and a case towards Maryland’s assault weapons ban. Ought to the Courtroom conform to hear both case, it will straight impression the way forward for Massachusetts’ associated legal guidelines.

Within the meantime, the ruling permits Massachusetts to proceed implementing its restrictions on firearms and magazines. The plaintiffs can both enchantment the choice or return to the district court docket to argue the case on its deserves.

UPDATE 4-18-2025 2:07 PM EASTERN: This piece has been up to date with quotes from the Massachusetts Legal professional Basic’s Workplace.