Tag Archives: law

Article – US judge tosses machine gun possession case, calls ban unconstitutional

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I suppose this had to come up sooner or later…

(Reuters) – A federal judge has dismissed charges against a Kansas man for possessing a machine gun, saying prosecutors failed to establish that a federal ban on owning such weapons is constitutional.

The decision by U.S. District Judge John Broomes in Wichita on Wednesday appeared to mark the first time a court has held that banning machine guns is unconstitutional after the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 issued a landmark ruling that expanded gun rights.

In that ruling, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Supreme Court established a new test for assessing firearms laws, saying restrictions must be “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

The Supreme Court clarified that standard in June as it upheld a ban on people subject to domestic violence restraining orders having guns, saying a modern firearms restriction needs only a “historical analogue,” not a “historical twin,” to be valid.

Broomes, an appointee of Republican then-President Donald Trump, said prosecutors in Tamori Morgan’s case failed to identify such a historical analogue to support charging him with violating the machine gun ban.

The U.S. Department of Justice can appeal the decision, which the gun safety group Everytown Law in a statement called “extreme and reckless.” Prosecutors did not respond to a request for comment. Morgan’s lawyer declined to comment.

I’m not going to say that I have no use for a machine gun. A little fun switch on my Uzi, and a Negev for my future fortified home, could come in handy someday. But ‘need’ is never a determining factor when it comes to this sort of thing.

Do I think this is the opening burst in a long slog towards repealing the NFA? No, I do not. Why? Because no matter what the legal status of something is, there’s just too much of an uphill battle with the non-gun public. It’s nice to think public opinion doesn’t matter in these issues and only the legal merits are whats important….but the minute a serious challenge is mounted, the media will be full of nonstop chatter about ‘silencers’ and machine guns becoming ‘readily available’. Never mind that anyone with a machine gun will tell you that theyre an expensive beast to feed.

However, I will follow this episode with some interest to see how far it gets, and what reasoning is bandied about, before it gets cut down by other courts.

News – Property Owners Win Again: Tennessee Appeals Court Affirms That Warrantless Searches by Game Wardens Are Unconstitutional

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Warrantless ‘searches’ (which really should be called intrusions) of a person’s property are one of those things that makes me go from 0-to-boogaloo with no stops in-between. It seems that some .gov organizations (local, usually) feel that they’re exempt from needing warrants to roam your property for reasons.

One situation I had been following closely is a case in Tennessee where game wardens, in the name of pursuing their mandate, can come onto people’s property surreptitiously, leave surveillance devices, monitor the property, and it’s all kosher because…reasons, I guess.

To my simplistic way of thinking, unless there’s some truly exigent circumstances, any badge-wearer or .gov employee has zero business being on Zero’s property uninvited.

Apparently a court in Tennessee has agreed with my sentiment:

JACKSON, Tenn.—Late yesterday, the Court of Appeals of Tennessee at Jackson affirmedthat the Tennessee Constitution bars game wardens from conducting warrantless searches of private property. The ruling upholds a circuit court victory for Benton County landowners Terry Rainwaters and Hunter Hollingsworth. Terry and Hunter sued with the Institute for Justice (IJ) after the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) ignored their “No Trespassing” signs by entering and installing cameras on their land. The victory applies broadly to all private land Tennesseans have put to “actual use,” whether by fencing, farming, posting, gating, hunting, fishing, camping, or otherwise.

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“This decision is a massive win for property rights in Tennessee,” said IJ Attorney and Elfie Gallun Fellow in Freedom and the Constitution Joshua Windham. “TWRA claimed unfettered power to put on full camouflage, invade people’s land, roam around as it pleases, take photos, record videos, sift through ponds, spy on people from behind bushes—all without consent, a warrant, or any meaningful limits on their power. This decision confirms that granting state officials unfettered power to invade private land is anathema to Tennesseans’ most basic constitutional rights.”

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TWRA thought that its warrantless searches were legal under the century-old federal “open fields” doctrine. In 1924, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not protect any land beyond the home and its immediately surrounding area. The Court reaffirmed the doctrine in 1984 when it held that property owners have no “reasonable expectation of privacy” on any land the Court deems to be an “open field”—a broad category that, according to a new IJ study, includes about 96% of all land nationwide and at least 92% of land in Tennessee specifically.

For people like you and I , with our particular interests and ideals, the notion of privacy and property rights are of heightened importance. If I’m berming a conex full of guns and food on my forty acres somewhere, the last thing I need is some state agency roaming the acreage without my permission….laying cameras and ground sensors, taking pictures, observing, etc. And, to my way of thinking, that applies to drone surveillance as well. I don’t really expect any sense of privacy from a low earth orbit satellite, but I do expect privacy 80 feet above my house.

I have a similar feeling towards the seemingly common practice of law enforcement slapping tracking devices on vehicles without a warrant. You modify my property with a surveillance device, you better have some paperwork about it or we’re going to have some words in a courtroom.

I applaud the Tennessee court for applying what seems to me as common sense in their decision.