BELLEVUE, WA – Attorneys representing the Second Amendment Foundation and its partners in a challenge of Delaware’s ban on so-called “assault weapons” and “large capacity magazines” have filed a brief with the U.S. Third District Court of Appeals in a consolidation of cases.
SAF is involved in two of the three cases, known as Graham v. Jennings and Gray v. Jennings. The appeal brief focuses on three questions: Whether Delaware’s ban on commonly-possessed rifles, mischaracterized as “assault rifles” and the ban on “large capacity magazines” violates the Second Amendment, and whether the District Court erred in refusing to grant a preliminary injunction in both cases.
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.
“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 M. 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.”
“Each day these laws remain in effect,” added SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut, “means one more day when Delaware citizens are deprived of their rights. The semiautomatic firearms and ammunition magazines banned by Delaware are in common use for lawful purposes, and the State cannot show that they fall within ‘the historical tradition’ of restricting ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’ Because of this, we’re asking the court to reverse the District Court’s order and remand the case with instructions to preliminarily enjoin the state’s ban on both the rifles and the magazines.”