I was traveling yesterday, so couldn’t get to the really big news that broke. That, of course, was the Third District Court of Appeals’ en banc 10-5 ruling that New Jersey’s “assault weapons” and “high capacity” magazine bans are unconstitutional.
You may yawn and say, ‘What’s the BFD? The Supreme Court already granted cert on two hardware cases.” True enough, but until yesterday, every other Court of Appeals to rule on “assault weapons” bans had upheld them. That was a point of pride for the gun control industry and their enablers in the media.
No longer. Yesterday’s ruling, which consolidated three cases, creates a circuit court split. And the wording of the ruling — written by Biden-appointed Judge Arianna Freeman — establishes that AR-15s and similar semi-automatic rifles are not only arms under the Second Amendment (other courts had ruled that they aren’t “arms” because they’re somehow dangerous and unusual) but are in common use for lawful purposes. That qualifies them as protected under both Heller and Bruen.
As Judge Freeman wrote . . .
Even the narrowest Founding-era definition of “Arms” addressed by the Heller Court “stated that all firearms constituted ‘arms.’” Because semi-automatic rifles are firearms, they are “Arms” within the meaning of the Second Amendment. The Constitution thus “presumptively protects” individuals’ right to keep and bear semi-automatic rifles.
Freeman’s opinion also makes clear that self-defense isn’t the only valid reason for owning semi-auto rifles.
[S]elf-defense is one lawful purpose relevant to the common-use inquiry, but it is not the only one. While self-defense is “central” to the Second Amendment, other lawful purposes also bring a commonly used weapon within the ambit of the Second Amendment. After all, Founding-era Americans commonly used weapons for hunting in addition to self-defense. See id. at 599 (noting that most Founding-era Americans “undoubtedly thought [the Second Amendment right] even more important for self-defense and hunting” than for securing the citizen militia). So weapons commonly used for hunting fall under the protection of the Second Amendment. Whatever the purpose of using a given arm, the lawfulness of that purpose is a necessary condition of Second Amendment coverage.
And there’s no doubt that uses like self-defense, hunting, competition, varmint control and just plain shooting for fun are lawful purposes that protect semi-automatic rifles under the 2A.
As for magazines, however many rounds they may hold. The state can’t draw some sort of arbitrary line above which one more cartridge makes you a felon . . .
The text of the Second Amendment covers all magazines, not just magazines that New Jersey considers “standard capacity.” Standard capacity magazines and LCMs are subsets of the broader category of “magazines,” separate categories of arms. The determination that magazines are arms, then, necessarily means that LCMs are arms as well.
New Jersey’s use of the term “large capacity magazine” further supports this conclusion. The LCM label is not objective: what is considered an LCM is statutorily defined. In New Jersey, that definition has changed over time. Today, a magazine capable of holding 15 rounds of ammunition is an LCM. But until 2018, that same magazine was not an LCM. It would defy reason for a label devised by New Jersey’s legislature to govern the reach of the Second Amendment’s text.
And here’s one that’s worth printing and putting up on your refrigerator . . .
The State reasons that firearms can operate with smaller capacity magazines. But the text of the Second Amendment does not limit “Arms” to the minimum equipment necessary to operate a weapon. And nowhere in Heller or Bruen’s textual analyses did the Supreme Court suggest that the availability of alternative equipment changes the definition of an arm under the Second Amendment.
We could go on, but you get the idea. You can read the full ruling here.
If there’s a negative, it’s the the ruling excludes certain semi-auto pistols and shotguns that New Jersey’s ban also prohibits. The Appeals Court does, however, instruct lower courts to apply the Appeals Court’s ruling here in those cases. We won’t hold our breath waiting for that to happen.
As the Second Amendment Foundation
“Today’s Third Circuit decision striking down New Jersey’s so-called ‘assault weapons’ ban
confirms arguments in SAF’s two cases before the Supreme Court – Viramontes v. Cook County
and Grant v. Higgins are valid and well-reasoned,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut.
“The Supreme Court’s recent decision Wolford v. Lopez, where he Court further clarified what
constitutes an ‘arm’ for Second Amendment purposes, has already laid the groundwork for
resolving these cases favorably and was adopted by the Third Circuit. We are optimistic today’s
ruling will further bolster a favorable result once we have the opportunity to argue the cases
before the Court this fall.”
As for the NSSF . . .
“Today’s ruling by the Third Circuit vindicates what NSSF has argued for decades. The MSR is a commonly used firearm that is protected for legal sale and lawful ownership under the Second Amendment. Additionally, standard-capacity magazines are ‘arms’ that are also protected by the Second Amendment,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President & General Counsel. The U.S. Supreme Court just agreed to hear two appeals in its next session to determine definitively whether laws banning MSRs violate the Second Amendment.
Meanwhile, the powers that be in New Jersey aren’t taking this well.
It will never not be funny that this “extreme, right-wing attempt to weaken the laws of New Jersey” was written by a Biden appointee and joined by other Democrat-appointed judges on the court.
— Rob Romano (@2Aupdates) July 18, 2026
Glorious.
“Glorious.”
That the opinion was written by a *Biden* appointee blows my mind.
Side note – She’s Black, as well. Could opinions on armed self-defense be changing???
“If there’s a negative, it’s the the ruling excludes certain semi-auto pistols and shotguns . . .”
As the status of those arms was not ‘included’ in the case before the 3rd Circuit–just rifles–they could not be ‘excluded’ from the ruling. A semantic difference perhaps, but a legally important one.
Semantics is all NJ had in the case.
I wonder how many Democrats are quietly happy AWBs are likely being struck down nationally next year.
One less fringe kook cause to waste their time. They’ll also lose that money though.
They aren’t gonna give up. They will find some other way to infringe. Things like bans for a certain fire rate like ‘you can only fire 1 round per 20 seconds cause the founder’s muskets could do that’ (or what ever the time) or something like ‘ok, you can have a 30 round magazine but it can only hold 1 round cause the founder’s muskets could only hold 1 round at a time’….anything to keep it in courts forever such that there is never any resolution.
Sounds like a fun way to get full auto into common use.
“I wonder how many Democrats are quietly happy AWBs are likely being struck down nationally next year.”
I’d say more than a few.
The weird thing is, many Leftist Scum ™ are gun owners, they are just closet gun owners…
Sincere question: what will be their kook causes going forward?
Look at the Harris-Trump debate to see what the issues were. It was mostly lies about abortion. We can use hindsight to see that was nothing more than fearmongering from Harris and the Dems. Okay, there’s another issue they don’t have to scream about.
Immigration policy was another big one in the debate. Harris claimed that her and Biden wanted to “fix” the open border problem they created on their first day in office, but they couldn’t fix it because Trump, who held no elected position at the time, blocked a measure to get them enough money to “fix” the problem. Then Trump came in and actually fixed the problem. Okay, there’s another issue they don’t have to scream about.
Affordability? After ignoring the quickest inflation increase in modern history (because they helped to create it and wanted to pass reckless spending bills), they’re suddenly the party of affordable energy? They want cheap gas? Has everyone forgotten what Biden and Obama did to the energy sector as soon as they got some power? Look up how high gas was under Obama, and run it through the inflation calculator. That’s what they really want. It’s a joke.
What else? Groom and tranz the kids? People are sick of that by now.
What do these people have left to run on? Envy. They’re going to take things from people you don’t like and give it to you. That’s the promise anyway.
” ‘Assault Weapons’ and ‘High Capacity’ Magazines”
These do not actually define anything, they are not actually legal terms. They are ‘labels’ usage invented by anti-gun so they could attach their own stuff. SCOTUS has seen through the deception of using these, other courts are also seeing through the deception. These were specifically invented to deceive the public into thinking semi-auto firearms are ‘military’ ‘weapons of war’ items like machine guns and they are not.
Anti-gun Josh Sugarman invented the term ‘assault weapon’ as applied to gun control.
Josh Sugarmann, founder and executive director of the Violence Policy Center, laid out this strategy of misdirection and obfuscation in a 1988 report on ‘Assault Weapons and Accessories in America.’ He stated that “the weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.” He added that because “few people can envision a practical use for these guns,” the public should be more inclined to support a ban on “assault weapons” than a ban on handguns. While handguns are by far the most common kind of firearm used to commit crimes, they are also the most popular choice for self-defense. Proscribing “assault weapons” therefore sounds more reasonable. And from then on out this Sugarman invented deceptive tactic of ‘assault weapons’ label use became a standard of the anti-gun.