The Trace Warns That Third Circuit Ruling on Assault Weapons a Likely Signal

There’s no doubt that The Trace was less than pleased about the Third Circuit ruling overturning New Jersey’s ban on so-called assault weapons. The opinion made it pretty clear that, under Bruen, there’s no judicial ground for such a thing.

That’s the good news, even if some people aren’t interested in listening.

Over at The Trace, they opted to tell us how they really feel, including where they think it’s going to go from here.

For the first time, a federal appellate court has struck down a state assault weapons ban on Second Amendment grounds. On July 17, the Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals struck down New Jersey’s ban.

Similar bans have been upheld by other appeals courts that have heard lawsuits challenging them, including in neighboring Maryland and most recently in Illinois, where the 4th and 7th Circuits upheld those states’ bans, respectively.

U.S. Circuit Judge Arianna Freeman, an appointee of President Joe Biden, wrote the 3rd Circuit’s majority opinion, holding that the U.S. Supreme Court’s precedent demanded the circuit court strike down the law. The decision was 10-5. 

“Together, Heller and Bruen teach that bans or broad prohibitions on possessing or carrying of a class of weapons in common use for lawful purposes fail to find support in our Nation’s tradition of firearm regulation,” she wrote. “That is so even when the regulations are passed with the intention of reducing gun violence.”

The ruling against New Jersey’s assault weapons ban is likely only the first, and could mark the beginning of the end for similar laws in nearly a dozen states. 

Delaware’s assault weapons ban — enacted in 2022 in response to back-to-back mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo — is likely next. Delaware sits within the 3rd Circuit, and a district court judge hearing an unresolved challenge to the state’s ban will be bound by the appellate court’s decision. The decision could also affect a ban in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which is also within the 3rd Circuit.

Of course, as noted by The Trace, the Supreme Court has already agreed to hear an assault weapon ban case, and this is a likely preview of where that decision is likely headed. The fact that it was written by a Biden appointee just makes the Third Circuit decision somewhat hilarious to me. You can’t blame right-wing reactionary judges for overturning so-called commonsense legislation when it’s someone appointed by the most anti-gun president in history.

Unfortunately, we already know definitively that other circuit courts aren’t following the Third Circuit’s lead, and a lot of that stems from a frankly idiotic understanding of what “in common use” means. As Cam noted in his report on the decision, “in common use” doesn’t just apply to being commonly used for self-defense, but for all lawful purposes. If people commonly target practice with an AR-15, and they do, then it’s in common use.

I haven’t read the latest travesty, which Cam will talk about a bit later today, assuming it’s not published by the time you’re reading this, so I’m not commenting on that decision precisely, but there are plenty of other examples.

And yeah, Delaware’s is likely to fall thanks to the Third Circuit’s decision, and the Virgin Islands will be dealing with a whole heap of hurt based on its anti-gun shenanigans of late.

Assault weapon bans are going down, and I’m here for it.

Anti-gunners will, undoubtedly, go on and on about things like mass killings even though such incidents are actually pretty rare and most of them involve a handgun in the first place, but since they also said we’d see more violence following Bruen and it didn’t happen, I think we can safely dismiss anything they say as being unserious.

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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