Colorado allows individual communities to ban so-called assault weapons. The fact that this is literally the most idiotic way to ban a category of firearm is irrelevant–they’re all stupid, but there are varying degrees of stupid.
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Rocky Mountain Gun Owners have been putting out the individual fires as they pop up, filing lawsuits against each community that enacts such a law.
So far, so good. It’s annoying and expensive for gun rights groups, but it’s doable.
Except now a judge wants the organization to provide evidence of something that should be pretty obvious.
The federal judge presiding over a lawsuit regarding various Boulder County assault weapon bans ordered Rocky Mountain Gun Owners and the National Association for Gun Rights to provide further evidence or risk having the case thrown out.
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In a document filed Monday, Federal Judge Nina Wang wrote that the plaintiffs, Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, failed to present sufficient evidence that the ordinances prohibit them from their current and future conduct, and cause direct injury. Wang stated that the plaintiff’s provided no evidence that show the ordinances “make it difficult or impossible for the organizations to fulfill any of their essential goals or purposes.”
The ordinances ban people in the county from the “manufacture, import, purchase, sell or transfer” of any assault weapons or large capacity magazines. Rocky Mountain Gun Owners conceded that the ordinance does not necessarily prohibit the possession of assault weapons, according to the order.
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I’m at a complete loss here, because the ban on making, purchasing, selling, transferring, or importing a so-called assault weapon would suggest that while you might be able to legally possess a gun in the city, there’s no physical way for you to get one lawfully.
You can’t even lawfully buy it outside the city and then bring it home because that would constitute importing one.
It seems kind of obvious how Rocky Mountain Gun Owners and its members are impacted here.
Yet even if we could somehow find a way to lawfully get an AR-15 while living in Boulder County, I have to wonder how the judge is managing to completely ignore Bruen here. Is there a historic analog for a geographic prohibition on making, buying, selling, or just bringing home a category of a firearm from the time of the nation’s founding?
Let’s just say I’m skeptical that any such thing exists.
I’m at a loss as to why they’re supposed to provide evidence for something that’s so obvious to anyone who cares to look. How are people supposed to obtain AR-15s or other so-called assault weapons? Magic? Are they supposed to just appear by magic?
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It seems Wang, a Joe Biden appointee, is simply trying to play games with people’s right to keep and bear arms because she sees no value in that right. This isn’t law, it’s activism, and she’s just trying to find an excuse to throw the case out.
But that isn’t going to stop the lawsuits. It’ll just kick it to the appeals courts where this gets a bit harder, and will continue to be challenged until the Supreme Court rules.
Yet it’ll interfere with rights in the meantime. Other cities may try this and interfere with people owning these weapons. And that’s why it needs to end swiftly.
