Third Circuit Strikes Down New Jersey’s ‘Assault Weapon’ Ban – The Epoch Times

California-legal AR-15-style rifles displayed for sale (AP Photo)

A federal appeals court on July 17 struck down New Jersey’s ban on so-called assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled 8–7 that the state’s dual bans violate the U.S. Constitution.

The term “assault weapons” is a non-technical phrase that can refer to semiautomatic rifles, modern sporting rifles such as those modeled after AR-15s and AKs, semiautomatic firearms with detachable magazines, rifles with military-style features, and semiautomatic long guns.

The ruling deepens a split among federal courts of appeals on the constitutionality of state restrictions on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines.

The new decision comes after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed on June 30 to hear Viramontes v. Cook County, Illinois, which is about whether local and state governments can ban or restrict access to popular semiautomatic rifles. The case is expected to be heard in the high court’s new term that begins in October.

Gun owners, the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs, and the Firearms Policy Coalition sued the state in three separate lawsuits, challenging the bans as unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. One of the lawsuits contended the magazine ban violated the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

A federal district court focused its analysis on one banned firearm, the Colt AR-15 rifle, holding the assault weapons ban violated the Second Amendment. The court upheld the magazine ban, finding it did not violate either the Second or Fifth Amendments, according to the newly issued opinion.

In a majority opinion authored by Circuit Judge Arianna Freeman, the appeals court said it was bound by the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), which held that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry firearms in public for self-defense. The high court also introduced a legal test that placed the burden on those defending gun restrictions to prove that those restrictions had a historical pedigree.

Semiautomatic firearms, and the magazines needed for them to function, qualify as arms and are therefore protected by the Second Amendment, the appeals court said.

There are about 24 million AR-15s and similar sports weapons in existence in the country, “a figure that is surpassed only by the number of registered handgun owners within the United States,” and there is no historical analogue for banning arms that are in common use, the appeals court said.

The appeals court said that the district court was correct to rule the prohibition against Colt AR-15s offends the Second Amendment, but modified the district court ruling to cover “the full class of semi-automatic rifles,” not Colt AR-15s alone.

The Third Circuit held that the ban on large-capacity magazines also violates the Second Amendment.

“Because magazines are required to operate many firearms, they are ‘Arms’ within the text of the Second Amendment—even when they can hold more than ten rounds of ammunition. Thus, magazines—including those that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition—are presumptively entitled to constitutional protection,” the court said.

Because the appeals court had already held the ban was unconstitutional under that amendment, it did not reach the Fifth Amendment question.

The case was sent back to the district court for it to resolve the Second Amendment challenge “to the other models and types of firearms covered” by the assault weapons ban.

Circuit Judge Cheryl Ann Krause wrote in her dissenting opinion that the New Jersey Legislature enacted the bans on semiautomatic rifles and large-capacity magazines because they are “weapons that are not proportional to the needs of ordinary self-defense but, rather, are designed to penetrate the steel helmets of enemy soldiers and maximize combatant casualties on the battlefield.”

She criticized the court majority for ignoring the state’s decision to make its firearms regulations consistent with “the deeply rooted regulatory tradition of proscribing these sorts of dangerous weapons, those so lethal that every other Court of Appeals to review a law regulating them has upheld it against constitutional challenge.”

Firearms Policy Coalition President Brandon Combs said the new ruling was “a massive victory for the People and another devastating blow to the authoritarian war on gun owners.”

“The Third Circuit correctly recognized what was obvious all along: the government cannot ban an entire class of commonly owned firearms,” Combs said in a statement.

Describing “gun violence” as a “public health crisis,” New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said the state is now weighing its legal options.

The decision is “as unfortunate as it is legally incorrect. Every other federal circuit court to consider the issue has come out the other way,” she told The Epoch Times.

“Assault weapons and large capacity magazines play a dangerous role in the modern epidemic of mass shootings, and New Jersey acted reasonably and lawfully in restricting them,” Davenport said.