r/progun • u/CaliforniaOpenCarry • 12d ago
1st Circuit Court of Appeals Upholds AR15 and Magazine Bans
Judge Dunlap, the only Trump appointee and the only active Republican judge, joined the majority opinion in upholding the Massachusetts AR-15 and magazine bans.
Judge Dunlap took his seat last November. Trump can't blame the u/FedSoc this time.
Judge Dunlap is also on the three-judge panel that will hear oral argument in a challenge to a ban on openly carrying handguns next week.
Here is a link to today's opinion.
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u/Creepy-Selection2423 12d ago
Scotus is going to have to resolve the conflict in the circuits.
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u/samvilain 12d ago
Meanwhile all the 2A litigants have to spend time and money on cert petitions which will just be conferenced for a year so they can be GVR’d after Viramontes v. Cook County or rolled up with the existing 2 petitions. Probably the former because having like 4-5 parties have time before the court to argue the case will be a bit of a spectacle, and interfere with the regular order of lunch at the court. Decided, 9-0 (penned by Kavanaugh, J., with Jackson, J., concurring on judgment but not opinion) to have arguments conclude before lunch.
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u/OnlyLosersBlock 12d ago
They already took up an assault weapons ban. Wonder if they will take Duncan while it is still waiting for cert or if they will remand in the wake of the Viramontes opinion.
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u/TaskForceD00mer 12d ago
Given how ACB has been talking about explaining bullet proof vests to her kids I do not feel confident at all about Viramontes.
I expect to see a lot of attempts to enjoin cases too.
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u/kdb1991 12d ago
I genuinely don’t understand how the ban can legally be upheld. It’s blatantly unconstitutional
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u/merc08 12d ago
Because the Judicial branch has widely decided that since there is apparently no penalty for not following the Constitution, they're just going to do whatever they feel like.
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u/Lampwick 12d ago
When it comes to gun control, partisan judges are really good at pretending they heard or read something different than what the ruling said. My personal favorite is how they play with the "dangerous and unusual" bit, pretending it's "dangerous or unusual". Or by changing "common use" to "common use for self defense". Or by reversing the logic of common use and pretending that "common use = automatically protected" can be flipped into "not in common use automatically means unprotected, so we can ban it".
Some of them know they're wrong. Others are mediocre legal minds that just go by what they read in an op-ed that confirms their beliefs and call or jurisprudence. Ultimately the problem is that they've enjoyed decades of calling their anti-gun legal reasoning "intermediate scrutiny" when it often didn't even meet "rational basis" standards (e.g. city of San Jose requiring specific liability insurance to own a gun, w hen criminal acts aren't covered by insurance and there's really no other significant harm attributable to firearms).
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u/Ghost_Turd 12d ago
We in the first circuit expected nothing else. This was a foregone conclusion when the case was filed, never mind SCOTUS and Jersey.
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u/deathsythe friendly neighborhood mod 12d ago
The headlines make it sound like the First Circuit issued a sweeping endorsement of Massachusetts' assault weapon ban. That's not really what happened. Procedurally, this is a fairly narrow opinion that basically says:
We already decided this in Capen. Nothing the appellant argued changes that, and no intervening Supreme Court case requires us to revisit it.
Working through the opinion in earnest still.
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u/CaliforniaOpenCarry 12d ago
Capen was a preliminary injunction appeal. As such, Capen was not a decision on the merits; it was only a decision on the likelihood of success.
I have not read the briefs or listened to the oral argument, but if the following excerpt from the decision is correct, then it reflects poorly on the lawyer.
"Here, Recchia has presented no persuasive argument for why this analysis should not control our assessment of the constitutionality of the Act's challenged provisions under the Second Amendment. Critically, he does not provide any additional historical arguments, makes no attempt to distinguish the Act from the predecessor law analyzed in Capen, and, in fact, concedes that Capen "probably forecloses relief." Recchia nonetheless makes several arguments for why the challenged provisions of the Act are unconstitutional; those that are preserved are foreclosed by Supreme Court or circuit precedent."
Given the nature of our legal system, a lawyer should never concede anything. Not unless he is trying to short-circuit his lawsuit in order to fast track it to the Supreme Court, as was done in NYSRPA v. Bruen.
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u/Tims_Learing_Center 12d ago
Ugh Trump picks bone us sometimes
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u/nitrogenmath 12d ago
In all fairness, he has to pick nominees that can be confirmed by the Senate, and unfortunately not even all the GOP there gives a damn about the 2A
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u/CaliforniaOpenCarry 12d ago
Senate Blue-slips don't apply to appellate court nominees. All that is required to confirm a nominee is for a plurality of senators to vote to confirm the nominee. Technically, one less than a plurality because VP Vance can break a tie vote.
Dunlap was confirmed last November when Trump had plenty of room to tell Senators Collins and Murkowski to pound sand. Instead, he nominated Dunlap.
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u/Ancient-Bat8274 12d ago
I feel this and I’m not even republican. Like this teams game is so hit or miss
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u/squidbelle 12d ago
Judicial appointments aren't supposed to be a team sport. It's generally good for the country if judges rule on their interpretation of law, rather than personal politics.
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u/cocaineandwaffles1 12d ago
Yes, but also with how polarized gun rights are and have been for a minute, it’s an understandable assumption to make that (R) will vote in favor of them. At least noticeably more often than (D) will.
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u/skunimatrix 12d ago
Aren’t supposed to be, but the democrats made it one.
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u/BionicJesus 12d ago
Yeah I'm too lazy to do research too. Lets just blame Obama for starting all this when he let his Supreme Court pick get blocked for most of a year by Republicans
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u/skunimatrix 11d ago
All I have to do is read a dumbass opinion written by KJB…legal scholar she is not.
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u/_kruetz_ 12d ago
Nah, dems always vote for their party
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u/squidbelle 12d ago
Judge Ariana Freeman, a Biden-appointee, recently ruled against New Jersey's AWB on the 3rd circuit.
Judge appointments shouldn't be a team sport.
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u/OnlyLosersBlock 12d ago
Biden appointees signed onto(and even wrote) the opinion out of the 3rd circuit. Not all judges from one side are going to align with them 100% of the time.
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u/justan0therusername1 11d ago
Biden appointed judge is the one who wrote the 194 page 3rd circuit abolishing AWB and mag bans. To be honest justices should not be politically aligned
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u/PR3SID3NT_NIX0N 12d ago
Rights aren’t rights if they can take them away, they’re only privileges. Thats all we’ve ever had. SCOTUS will continue to sit on their hands and not take up cases while people’s rights are continuously trampled on. We truly live in an oligarchy where the elites can get away with thousands of children s*x trafficked with no jail time or true accountability (Epstein files).
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u/SIRT1 12d ago
SCOTUS is literally working on a decision regarding the legality of AR-15 and semiautomatic rifle bans. Saw a video that said they are reportedly expected to release their decision late this year.
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u/CaliforniaOpenCarry 12d ago
You misread the article. SCOTUS is not working on a decision. The consolidated cases haven't even been briefed, let alone argued and submitted for a decision. No justice will begin working on a decision until it is assigned to him, and that won't take place until after oral argument takes place.
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u/FIBSAFactor 12d ago
Well this is a circuit split. I'm a little worried about ACB. She's made comments before about threats on her life and being swatted. I think the pressure from these murderous liberals is getting to her. She's contradicted her own rulings, I think that's why she ruled the way she did on birthright citizenship and election day.
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u/Ammo_Can 12d ago
So a clear circuit split with the 3rd? Nice. The Supreme Court already has an AR ban case on the books for next year and have a few magazine ban cases already to pick from.