Relevant excerpt a buddy posted on a local site:
“This matter is before the court on Defendant’s motion to dismiss based on Second
Amendment grounds. (Doc. 26.) A response and a reply have been filed (Docs. 28, 29), and the
court held a hearing to establish additional facts about the weapons charged. The motion is thus
ripe for review. The court finds that the Second Amendment applies to the weapons charged
because they are “bearable arms” within the original meaning of the amendment. The court further
finds that the government has failed to establish that this nation’s history of gun regulation justifies
the application of 18 U.S.C. § 922(o) to Defendant. The court therefore grants the motion to
dismiss.
I. Background
Defendant Tamori Morgan is charged with two counts of possessing a machinegun in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(o). (Doc. 1.) Specifically, Defendant is charged with possessing an
Anderson Manufacturing, model AM-15 .300 caliber machinegun and a machinegun conversion
device. It was established at the hearing that the conversion device is a so-called “Glock switch”
which allows a Glock, model 33, .357 SIG caliber firearm to fire as an automatic weapon.
II.Under the Second Amendment, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not
be infringed.” U.S. Const. amend. II. “[T]he Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all
instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the
founding.” D.C. v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 582 (2008).”
Could this be the beginning of the end for this long fight and the first step in Tommy guns returning to the Ace Hardware counter?
Kansas ruling on 922(o)? limit on machine guns is un-constitutional. A YouTuber says that the common use doesn’t apply to machine guns because there are only 170,000 in civilian hands. The other MGs on the NFA are not civilian, but are GOVT and LEO owned.
I assume that some municipalities have govt owned guns, but I thought that LEOs could get Suppressors and MGs with letter head? Or are those not part of the NFA registry? I’d argue that a LEO is a civilian. A govt employee, yes; but a civilian. Just because we let some civy’s have automatic weapons doesn’t change that they are not the military.
Plus, the NFA and the Hughes amendments are really tax issues, not actually 2A- at least not directly.
His real point is that we don’t have five solid voted on SCOTUS for MGs, so don’t press the issue. But at the same time he is weakening the argument for MGs with his 170,000.
How many MGs are there sleeping at home with someone and not owned by a city/state/county? I don’t care if the govt decided to let their people get MGs, even if they are not transferable.
Just to get nitpicky, it’s pretty much impossible to apply the “common use” standard to automatic weapons based solely on the quantity owned by civilians. They have been regulated and restricted from common use and those restrictions have steadily increased over time. The market forces of supply and demand have been heavily influenced to artificially prevent more widespread ownership.
It’s kinda like calling a lakebed “naturally dry” after you divert the river from feeding it.
A much better indication of common demand is the constantly increasing price that people are willing to pay for the relatively small number of automatic weapons that are available to the common consumer. If automatic and select fire firearms were commonly available they would obviously be much more commonly owned.
And very popular semi auto arms(that are offshoots of selective fire originals) are semi auto only due to threats of fines, imprisonment, and/or being murdered for owning the original configuration.
So, not LEOs? This was not my main point, it is if LEOs own the FA items or are they only owned by govt entities. And by FA, I don’t mean transferable (pre 87?) but new production FA items. I assume that they would have to be turned in or destroyed when LEO service ended.
Mark Smith is the YouTuber saying that there are only 170,000 FA items in civilian hands.
That’s my understanding as well. The department or agency can purchase them, but an individual LEO purchasing privately cannot just buy a post 86. Officer Friendly would have to buy a transferrable.
The ruling only applies to the plaintiff. DOJ may or may not appeal. if the appeal ends up in the supreme court they cold uphold the ruling then It would apply to everyone. DOJ might not want to take the chance reasoning one guy with a machine gun is better than all.
They could offer a deal that if he registers them they will drop the case.
Neat ruling. Cool that it came out of Kansas. Even if the number is only 100,000, that’s still quite large, and only applies to registered weapons. As the DOJ and other lawfare organizations have been arguing recently, there are many more unregistered weapons out there. That brings the number up considerably. Common use doesn’t have a “percentage of total” or “per capita” requirement after all.
This is old information so if it’s out of date, someone can come in here and update it.
When I was in LE and also worked with LE procurements on the business side, only certified law enforcement agencies could purchase Post-86 MG’s. All MG’s had to be transferred directly to the agency, not individual officers. Here’s where it gets a bit murky. Once the agency takes possession, they’re the sole authority on what to do with them. In most cases, they’re issued to individual officers, usually officers designated for Tac/Special Ops teams. Some are retained in the agency armory. All of them belong solely to the agency, regardless of where they’re stored.
In some very limited cases and usually in the smaller, more politically inclined agencies, a highly trusted officer who retires may be allowed to retain possession of their issued MG. Upon their death (or loss of fraternity with the agency), that MG MUST go back to the agency. It cannot be transferred in the NFA Registry to the individual officer and therefore it cannot be transferred to any heir of said officer upon their death.
Now, is that legal? That’s a great question! It surely must be frowned upon by BATFE, but who gets to decide when an agency is out of compliance? If an audit were conducted and the retired officer carrying retirement LE creds comes in and shows the MG is still under “agency control”, who could say otherwise?
With that being said, how many agencies have “lost” MG’s? I know many federal agencies have legit lost MG’s. Just Google “How many machineguns has the FBI lost?”. You can do the same with other agencies as well. So, I have no doubt that there are local and perhaps even state agencies that have allowed a retiring officer to take a MG home, then somewhere down the line lost audit control of said MG. How many Post-86 MG’s that were transferred to LE agencies are no longer within their physical control? I’d venture a guess that no one knows that number.
Regardless, Post-86 MG’s owned by LE agencies remain non-transferrable in the civilian realm unless BATFE says otherwise. Why did I add that caveat? Well…
Thanks for the long explanation and I think that explains the situation pretty well. Well, not owning the machine guns, if I get to take a gun home and keep it at home, I will consider that pretty much “mine“.
So police officers don’t own post 86 machine guns, but they can possess them. I think that is an effective description. I would say that those are in civilian possession.
But the reality and the point I’m trying to make is that civilians control and possess far more than 170,000 fully automatic firearms.
As I see it, the BEST deal we get out of Piss-Stain Roberts is:
*NFA registry and taxation upheld as Constitutional
*Registry closure and Federal prohibition struck down
*No ruling on state-level bans
Next dominoes to fall:
*ATF adopts a “deny on slightest pretext” policy - for example “Rejected for I’s not dotted” on mine because my handwriting uses smallcaps instead of lowercase
*More of the Blue Hells enact state-level bans
*Registered owners start getting annual ATF colonoscopies looking for pretexts to jam up
Could it go back to the Supreme Court and they strike down bruen because they see how it would apply to machine guns and machine guns are not common use?
Idk if fighting for machine guns is really the game we want to play.
Honestly the fight we are going to be facing is for semi autos. And let’s be honest we all know semi autos are much more useful than machine guns for anything other than suppressive fire.
