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Abstract
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Legal challenges to gun laws are nothing new, including laws restricting access to assault weapons. Such challenges have often included objections to restrictions regarding bullet magazines. In general, ammo magazine restrictions have been consistently upheld, with a couple of recent exceptions.
In 2013, New York State enacted a tough new gun law, the New York SAFE Act.2 This measure, enacted in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut, implemented a variety of new gun regulations, including new restrictions on assault weapons, and a reduction from ten to seven in the maximum number of bullets or rounds a legally owned magazine could hold.3 The law also eliminated the grandfathering of older magazines, requiring that non- compliant magazines be disposed of regardless of their age.4 The law's constitutionality was challenged in federal court, where a federal district judge upheld the law, but did strike down the lower limit, concluding that the number seven set in the new law was "a largely arbitrary number" as the state failed to explain why it settled on that number from the previous ten.5 On appeal, the law was upheld, including the elimination of the lower magazine limit of seven.
A challenge to California's two-decade old magazine limit of ten resulted in a different outcome.7 In the 2019 case of Duncan v. Becerra,8 a federal district court judge struck down the ten bullet magazine limit, although the ruling was stayed pending a hearing by the Ninth Circuit. The decision is notable for three reasons. First, it struck down both the verdict of the state referendum that eliminated the legality of owning pre-2000 large capacity magazines (LCMs) and the ten round limit itself. Second, it concluded that there is a Second Amendment right to own magazines holding more than ten rounds, repeatedly calling it a "core" right of the Second Amendment.9 Third, it was a departure from previous federal courts of appeals holdings which, as noted, up until this time had consistently upheld magazine restrictions.10 Whether this ruling prevails or not,11 it raises some key issues about the regulation of magazines and its relationship, if any, to the Second Amendment. In addition, arguments using Duncan's logic have surfaced, claiming that the ownership of gun silencers might also be protected under the Second Amendment. These are not purely contemporary questions, as the history of gun laws reveals. Recent analyses of the history of gun laws in America have excavated a surprisingly rich, diverse, and prolific number and variety of gun laws, extending back to the country's beginnings. It is commonplace to think of gun regulation as an artifact of the late twentieth century. Yet nothing could be further from the truth: gun ownership is as old as the country, and so are gun laws.
This Article examines the little-known roots of gun magazine regulation and its relationship to the regulation of semi-automatic and fully automatic weapons, dating to early in the previous century. It also examines the history and modern debate over gun silencers. Since their invention over a century ago, silencers have been subject to strict regulation. In recent years, however, both magazines and...
Language: en |