Hanson v. Dist. of Columbia

671 F.Supp.3d 1

Andrew HANSON, et al., Plaintiffs, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 22-2256 (RC)

United States District Court, District of Columbia

Signed April 20, 2023

George L. Lyon, Jr., Bergstrom Attorneys, Washington, DC, for Plaintiffs.

Andrew J. Saindon, Mateya Beth Kelley, Richard P. Sobiecki, Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, Civil Litigation Division, Washington, DC, Helen Marie Rave, Office of the Attorney

General District of Columbia, DC, for Defendants.

Timothy Channing Hester, Covington & Burling, Washington, DC, for Amici Brady, Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, March for Our Lives.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

DENYING PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR A PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION

RUDOLPH CONTRERAS, United States District Judge

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiffs, four American citizens who reside in or spend time in the District of Columbia, challenge the constitutionality of D.C. law that bans possession of large-capacity magazines ("LCMs"). Plaintiffs own pistols and wish to equip them with LCMs for self-defense. They claim this conduct is protected by the Second Amendment under the test set forth in the Supreme Court's recent decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 142 S. Ct. 2111, 213 L.Ed.2d 387 (2022). They now move for a preliminary (and permanent) injunction that enjoins Defendants, the District of Columbia and the Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department Robert J. Contee III (together, "the District"), from enforcing this law. The Court held oral argument on the motion. The matter is fully briefed and ripe for decision. For the reasons described below, the Court concludes that the District's LCM ban is constitutional, and therefore Plaintiffs have not shown likelihood of success on the merits. The Court will thus deny Plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction.

II. BACKGROUND

A. Case Background

The sole object of Plaintiffs' constitutional challenge is D.C.'s LCM ban, which provides in full:

No person in the District shall possess, sell, or transfer any large capacity ammunition feeding device regardless of whether the device is attached to a firearm. For the purposes of this subsection, the term "large capacity ammunition feeding device" means a magazine, belt, drum, feed strip, or similar device that has a capacity of, or that can be readily restored or converted to accept, more than 10 rounds of ammunition. The term "large capacity ammunition feeding device" shall not include an attached tubular device designed to accept, and capable of operating only with, .22 caliber rimfire ammunition.

D.C. Code § 7-2506.01(b). Violation of this provision carries a penalty of up to three years in prison and a fine of up to $12,500. D.C. Code §§ 7-2507.06(a)(4); 22-3571.01(b)(6).

Some context is in order to understand the gun law at issue. An ammunition feeding device, more commonly known as a magazine, "is a vehicle for carrying ammunition. It can be either integral to the gun or detachable." Ocean State Tactical, LLC v. Rhode Island, No. 22-cv-246, 2022 WL 17721175, at *4 (D.R.I. Dec. 14, 2022). "Most modern semi-automatic firearms, whether handguns or semi-automatic rifles like AR-15s, use detachable box magazines." Id. The magazine is simply "inserted into and removed from the frame of the firearm, much as an extra battery-pack gets swapped in and out of a battery-operated tool, like a leaf blower, for example." Id. Magazines come in different sizes and have different capacities. Under D.C. law, a large-capacity magazine, or LCM, is simply a magazine that can hold more than ten bullets. "When a multiple-round device like an LCM is attached, a handgun becomes a 'semiautomatic' weapon, meaning that it is capable of rapidly firing several bullets, one right after another. However, the gun still requires a trigger-pull for each round fired." Id.¹

Plaintiffs each hold a license to carry a concealed pistol issued by the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and they regularly carry firearms in D.C. See Hanson Decl. ¶ 2, ECF No. 8-2; Yzaguirre Decl. ¶ 2, ECF No. 8-3; Chaney Decl. ¶ 2, ECF No. 8-4; Klun Decl. ¶ 2, ECF No. 8-5. Each Plaintiff possesses LCMs outside D.C., and each Plaintiff claims that, but for D.C. law banning LCM possession in D.C., he would use LCMs for self-defense in D.C. Hanson Decl. ¶¶ 3-4; Yzaguirre Decl. ¶¶ 3-4; Chaney Decl. ¶¶ 3-4; Klun Decl. ¶¶ 3-4. In October 2022, Plaintiff Yzaguirre attempted to register a firearm with the Metropolitan Police Department but was denied because his firearm came with a 12-round LCM, in violation of D.C. law. Yzaguirre 2d Decl. ¶¶ 2-7, ECF No. 16-1.

Plaintiffs brought suit on August 1, 2022, seeking: a declaratory judgment that D.C.'s LCM ban violates the Second and Fifth Amendments; a preliminary and permanent injunction preventing the District from enforcing this ban; damages; and other costs. See Compl. at 22-24, ECF No. 1. Plaintiffs then moved for a preliminary injunction on August 19, 2022. Pls.' Appl. for Prelim. Inj. ("Pls.' Mot."), ECF No. 8. A few days later, the District moved for an extension of time to respond and also to conduct limited discovery as to the facts underlying Plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction. ECF Nos. 9, 10. The Court granted both motions on September 7, 2022. Min. Order (Sept. 7, 2022). On October 31, 2022, Plaintiffs supplemented their motion for a preliminary injunction with leave of Court. Min. Order (Oct. 31, 2022). On December 1, 2022, the Court permitted three nonprofit organizations, Brady, Gifford Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, and March for our Lives to jointly submit an amicus brief in support of the District. Min. Order (Dec. 1, 2022); see Amicus Brief, ECF No. 18-1. Plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction was fully briefed as of January 23, 2022. The Court heard oral argument on the motion on April 13, 2023. The motion is now ripe for decision.

B. Legal Background

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution provides: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." U.S. Const. amend. II. Although short, this text is anything but simple. To understand and interpret this constitutional text, the Court looks to caselaw that is relevant to the specific question at hand. As it turns out, Plaintiffs are not the first to raise a Second Amendment challenge to the District's LCM ban: a group of plaintiffs challenged the same law over a decade ago in Heller v. District of Columbia ("Heller II"), 670 F.3d 1244 (D.C. Cir. 2011), which ultimately upheld the ban. Heller II was decided in the wake of the Supreme Court's seminal Second Amendment case, District of Columbia v. Heller ("Heller"), 554 U.S. 570, 128 S.Ct. 2783, 171 L.Ed.2d 637 (2008). The Supreme Court's decision in Bruen last year, however, soundly rejected how the Courts of Appeals interpreted and applied Heller, and so calls into question the outcome of Heller II. Thus, although Plaintiffs' challenge to D.C.'s LCM ban is not entirely new, it demands renewed analysis under the framework Bruen provides.

Understanding Bruen requires taking a few steps back, to Heller. In Heller, the Supreme Court held that the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violated the Second Amendment. 554 U.S. at 572, 128 S.Ct. 2783. At the time, the District prohibited handgun registration, made it a crime to carry an unregistered firearm, and required residents to keep any lawfully owned firearms unloaded and disassembled. Id. at 574, 128 S.Ct. 2783. In ruling for the plaintiffs and striking down D.C. law, Heller established that the Second Amendment confers "the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation." Id. at 592, 128 S.Ct. 2783. The Supreme Court explained in this landmark decision that "the inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right." Id. at 628, 128 S.Ct. 2783.

Heller also cautioned that "[l]ike most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited." Id. at 626, 128 S.Ct. 2783. Quoting Blackstone and other sources, the Supreme Court stated that "the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose." Id. Thus, the Second Amendment "does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes." Id. at 625, 128 S.Ct. 2783. And the Court did not "cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms." Id. at 626-27, 128 S.Ct. 2783.

In the wake of Heller, the District passed the Firearms Registration Amendment Act of 2008 ("FRA"), which updated D.C.'s gun laws. Of relevance here, the FRA added a new provision that bans LCM possession—the same provision at issue in this case. See D.C. Law 17-372 § 3(n), Firearms Control Amendment Act of 2008, https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/laws/docs/17-372.pdf (adding "new subsection (b)" to D.C. Code § 7-2506.01). A group of plaintiffs once again sued the District, this time challenging the constitutionality of, inter alia, the District's ban on assault weapons (in particular, semi-automatic rifles) and its ban on LCM possession. Heller II, 670 F.3d at 1249. In assessing the plaintiffs' challenges to these laws, the D.C. Circuit followed the same framework that its sister Courts of Appeals employed in Second Amendment challenges post-Heller. Under this "two-step approach," a court must "ask first whether a particular provision impinges upon a right protected by the Second Amendment; if it does, then . . . go on to determine whether the provision passes muster under the appropriate level of constitutional scrutiny." I...