DC Magazine Ban Ruling Survives—For Now

A DC appellate court ruled the District's magazine ban unconstitutional—so naturally, DC is now arguing that letting the ruling stand will cause chaos.

State of play: A three-judge panel on the DC Court of Appeals ruled last week that the District's ban on magazines holding more than 10 rounds violates the Second Amendment. The panel's reasoning was straightforward: these magazines are "arms," they're in common use for lawful purposes, and the Constitution protects them.

What DC is doing about it: The District filed an emergency request to suspend the ruling's precedential status while it pursues an en banc review—meaning it wants the full court to rehear the case and reverse the panel. DC is calling the decision's "blast radius" potentially massive, warning it could destabilize prosecutions well beyond magazine possession.

Reality check: That's a stretch. The panel's opinion is narrow—it addresses magazine capacity bans, period. DC's licensing and registration statutes aren't touched. The only real "uncertainty" is whether DC police keep arresting people for carrying standard-capacity magazines in a jurisdiction where a court just said that's constitutionally protected.

The US Attorney's office has already stopped pursuing those charges. DC's own AG, however, is still prosecuting them.

"On the District's logic, states could ban two-round or even one-round magazines... [and] could just directly outlaw the semi-automatic firing mechanism because, by itself, that is a harmless component of a firearm." — DC Court of Appeals panel majority

The legal question: DC's argument—that arms can be banned if they're not strictly necessary for basic firearm function—opens a door the panel correctly refused to walk through. Taken to its logical end, that reasoning would permit bans on modern cartridges, semi-automatic actions, and anything else a government could argue isn't essential. Heller already closed that door. The panel said so.

The historical record doesn't help DC either. Magazine capacity restrictions are a post-1960s invention. When Colt's revolvers replaced single-shot cap-and-ball pistols, no state banned them. When lever-actions showed up holding 15 rounds, nobody outlawed the tube magazine. Capacity limits have no deep historical roots—they're modern policy dressed up as tradition.

What to watch: The DC Court of Appeals set an expedited briefing schedule wrapping up next Wednesday. A decision on whether to grant en banc review could land by end of that week. If the full court takes the case, the panel's ruling stays on hold during the review. If they pass, the ban is effectively dead in DC.

The bottom line: DC can claim chaos all it wants. The other 40-plus states without magazine restrictions aren't burning down.