A U.S. District Court in Mississippi dismissed a machine gun possession charge, citing the Bruen decision and saying the law runs afoul of American history and tradition regarding the right to keep and bear arms. It is the second such decision in recent months.
U.S. District Judge Carlton W. Reeves, a 2010 Obama appointee, agreed with the defendant, Justin Brown (warning: Guns.com link–we read it so you don’t have to), who challenged his machine gun possession charge by arguing that the Second Amendment protected him from criminal prosecution under the federal government’s statutes.
The government’s case was centered on the assertion that machine guns are “dangerous and unusual.” But an earlier case in Kansas, U.S. v. Tamori Morgan – which was similarly tossed by a federal court in Kansas last August – raised the point that more than 740,000 machine guns were lawfully possessed in the U.S. in 2021, making them not unusual. Reeves said that in the wake of Bruen, he was forced to agree.
Whether the Justice Department will appeal the case has not been announced; it is with noting that since this was a criminal case, the decision affects only Brown.
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