Judge Dismisses Machine Gun Charges Against Kansas Woman, Citing Supreme Court Decision

A U.S. judge has dismissed charges against a woman who possessed a machine gun, citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision that shifted the framework for how courts analyze cases dealing with constitutional rights.

Machine guns fall under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, U.S. District Judge John Broomes found.

That means prosecutors must show that the law barring possession of machine guns is rooted in historical firearm restrictions, under the 2022 Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, he added.

“In this case, the government has not met its burden under Bruen and Rahimi to demonstrate through historical analogs that regulation of the weapons at issue in this case are consistent with the nation’s history of firearms regulation,” Broomes wrote in his 10-page ruling on Aug. 21. “Indeed, the government has barely tried to meet that burden. And the Supreme Court has indicated that the Bruen analysis is not merely a suggestion.”

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority in Bruen, said that when the Second Amendment is found to apply, government officials must show that the regulation in question “is consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

In the recent ruling in United States v. Rahimi, the justices found that a law prohibiting people under domestic violence-related restraining orders from possessing guns does not violate the Second Amendment, and they clarified how courts should analyze such regulations.

“A court must ascertain whether the new law is ’relevantly similar‘ to laws that our tradition is understood to permit, ’apply[ing] faithfully the balance struck by the founding generation to modern circumstances,’” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. He said that some courts had misunderstood Bruen.

Broomes’s decision came after prosecutors charged Tamori Morgan, a Kansas resident, with illegally possessing an Anderson Manufacturing AM-15 .300 caliber machine gun and a machine gun conversation device.

Keep reading