Judge Dismisses Machine Gun Case, Says Law Is Unconstitutional

A federal judge in Wichita, Kansas, has tossed the case against a Kansas man who was facing charges of illegally possessing a machine gun.

In his decision in the case U.S. v Morgan, U.S. District Judge John Broomes of the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas, ruled that the federal law tightly regulating the ownership and transfer of full-auto firearms is unconstitutional under the 2022 Bruen decision. The ruling marked the first time the machine gun restrictions have been found unconstitutional.

Judge Broomes, a Donald Trump appointee, wrote in the ruling that the government’s inability to cite historic bans as required by the second Bruen standard was important in determining the constitutionality of the law.

“Defendant argues that the government cannot meet its burden to show that [the statute] is consistent with this nation’s history of firearm regulation,” Judge Broomes’ ruling stated. “To meet its burden, the government advances only two potential historical analogs. First, the government points to English common law, which it asserts prohibited riding or going armed with dangerous or usual weapons. Second, the government cites one case from the North Carolina Supreme Court in 1824 that recognized an offense to arm oneself ‘with dangerous and unusual weapons, in such a manner as will naturally cause a terror to the people.’ But both examples are disanalogous to what Defendant is charged with here—simple possession of a machine gun.”

The key to the case, according to Judge Broomes, was the laws cited by the government dealt with how arms were carried or used, not their simple ownership.

“In contrast with the aforementioned historical examples, § 922 says nothing about the manner in which machine guns are carried or displayed,” the ruling stated. Instead, [it] criminalizes the mere possession of such weapons without regard to how the possessor uses them. If an individual purchases such a weapon and locks it away in a gun safe in his basement for twenty years without touching it, he is just as guilty of a violation … as one who takes the same weapon out on the public streets and displays it in an aggressive manner. The statute requires no more than possession, and, more importantly in an as-applied challenge, the indictment in this case alleges nothing more.”

In the end, Judge Broomes said the government’s poor case required him to rule for a dismissal on Second Amendment grounds.

“To summarize, in this case, the government has not met its burden under Bruen and Rahimi to demonstrate through historical analogs that regulation of the weapons at issue in this case are consistent with the nation’s history of firearms regulation,” the ruling stated. “Indeed, the government has barely tried to meet that burden. And the Supreme Court has indicated that the Bruen analysis is not merely a suggestion.”