2A win: Appeals court in DC strikes down high-capacity magazine restrictions

Second Amendment advocates are celebrating after a D.C. appeals court struck down a local ban on high-capacity magazines.

On Thursday, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals handed down a 2-1 decision in Tyree Benson v. United States and the District of Columbia, ruling that a local law banning gun magazines that can contain more than 10 rounds is unconstitutional.

'We agree with Benson and the United States that the District’s outright ban on them violates the Second Amendment.'

Appellant Tyree Benson was arrested in October 2022 on multiple charges related to possession of a Glock 45 9mm caliber handgun with a high-capacity magazine that could hold 30 rounds of ammunition.

The opinion argued that the ubiquity of high-capacity magazines makes enforcing or justifying an outright ban extremely difficult.

Magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition are ubiquitous in our country, numbering in the hundreds of millions, accounting for about half of the magazines in the hands of our citizenry, and they come standard with the most popular firearms sold in America today. Because these magazines are arms in common and ubiquitous use by law-abiding citizens across this country, we agree with Benson and the United States that the District’s outright ban on them violates the Second Amendment.

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Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

The opinion of the court was written by Trump appointee Associate Judge Joshua Deahl, who was joined by Obama appointee Catharine Friend Easterly.

In her dissent, Chief Judge Anna Blackburne-Rigsby argued in part that the majority's argument failed to address the unusually high capacity in this case, whereas many gun owners have guns with 11-, 15-, or 17-round magazines. Additionally, she defended the law by applying the historical legal standard of banning "dangerous and unusual" weapons, though that standard is controversial.

The District of Columbia, which upholds the ban and is another party in the suit, could appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court or request that a larger panel from the local appeals court reconsider it, the New York Times reported.

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