By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Gun rights organizations including the Second Amendment Foundation are asking a federal appeals court to overturn a lower court ruling in April that upheld a 2022 Delaware package of gun control laws that banned so-called “assault weapons” and “high-capacity magazines.”
According to the Center Square, appellant briefs have been filed with the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Three cases are being appealed, including two involving SAF. They are known as Graham v. Jennings and Gray v. Jennings. The cases were originally filed in January.
SAF and its fellow plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Bradley P. Lehman at Gellert Scali Busenkell & Brown in Wilmington, Del., and David H Thompson, Peter A. Patterson and John D. Ohlendorf at Cooper & Kirk in Washington, D.C.
Other plaintiffs are Firearms Policy Coalition, DJJAMS LLC and individual citizens Owen Stevens and Christopher Graham, William Taylor and Gabriel Gray.
The 66-page SAF brief may be read here.
Last year, a package of legislation was passed by the Democrat-controlled legislature and signed by Democrat Gov. John Carney.
“Delaware has banned the most popular rifle in the country, along with the standard-capacity magazines supplied by manufacturers to consumers in most other states,” noted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb. “The laws being challenged have literally criminalized ownership of these popular arms and the magazines supplied with them, essentially jeopardizing an act of self-defense if it involves one of the affected firearms or magazines.”
Center Square is reporting that the Delaware Sportsmen’s Association, a state affiliate of the National Rifle Association, is also involved in a lawsuit challenging the new laws. That case is known as Delaware State Sportsmen’s Ass’n v. Delaware Department of Safety and Homeland Security.
All of the cases have been consolidated.
All of the legal actions contend the new laws violate the Second Amendment, which was incorporated to the states via the 14th Amendment 13 years ago as part of the Supreme Court ruling in McDonald v. City of Chicago.
In SAF’s brief to the appeals court, the attorneys assert, “.In examining the historical record, all this Court will find is confirmation that the Supreme Court was correct to conclude that, historically speaking, only dangerous and unusual weapons could be banned consistent with the Second Amendment. The firearms and magazines at issue here are neither of those things, and so the Delaware bans are unconstitutional, and Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits. And because they are likely to succeed in showing a violation of a fundamental constitutional right, the other injunction factors all favor Plaintiffs as well.”
