Rocky Mountain Gun Owners make another run at magazine ban

In the midst of the Aurora theater shooting in Colorado, one of the laws passed was a magazine ban. Lawmakers there figured it would stop mass shootings or something.

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Which really worked out well when the King Soopers shooting in Boulder happened.

Anyway, Rocky Mountain Gun Owners challenged the magazine ban but were unsuccessful. Now, they’re going after it again.

The legal arm for Rocky Mountain Gun Owners is suing Gov. Jared Polis in federal court, ratcheting up their fight against gun restrictions after a judge last week temporarily blocked a Colorado town’s new gun control rules.

The National Foundation for Gun Rights filed the lawsuit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Denver, challenging the constitutionality of the 2013 Standard Capacity Magazine Ban, which bans in Colorado the sale, transfer and possession of magazines capable of accepting more than 15 rounds.

The lawsuit says the law should be overturned in light of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a New York law that had required people to show why they needed a concealed weapons permit.

The Loveland-based group argues in its new federal lawsuit that Colorado’s bans on standard capacity magazines “flies directly in the face of the Second Amendment” for Coloradans who want to own these “commonly owned firearm accessories.”

Dudley Brown, president of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, said the Supreme Court ruling gave his organization a “4-ton wrecking ball to dismantle Colorado’s gun control laws,” in a written statement.

“And we’re going to wipe out every unconstitutional law that stands in the way of law-abiding citizen’s Second Amendment rights,” Brown said.

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As they should.

Now, does this lawsuit really have a chance? Yeah, actually, it does. The Bruen decision laid out clear guidelines on what kinds of gun control laws might be considered constitutional, and the courts will be hard-pressed to find a capacity limit dating from 1780 or so.

And since the Puckle Gun existed, you can’t claim everything was single-shot.

Hell, it should be noted that capacity limits weren’t even a thing until at least the 1980s. Neither the NFA nor GCA restricted magazines.

That means there’s no reason to believe a magazine ban will survive Bruen’s “text and history” standard. That’s because it simply won’t.

Rocky Mountain Gun Owner is right to make another run at the magazine ban. I think they’ll ultimately be successful this time around unless the courts do something stupid. If they do, I can see this ending up in front of the Supreme Court; the same court which will explicitly lay down that magazine bans are unconstitutional.

In other words, Colorado has likely already lost.

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About the only way they can keep the courts from making it official is to just repeal the ban so it’s a non-issue. That worked for New York City a couple of years ago and it may work for the state of Colorado this year. That is if they have any sense.

Either way, the days of Colorado’s magazine ban are likely numbered. That’s great news for Coloradoans.

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