A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected a challenge to the Rhode Island law banning large-capacity gun magazines.
The law, passed in 2022, bans ammunition magazines that carry more than ten rounds.
Several Rhode Island gun owners and a Chepachet gun store sued the state. In December 2022, a federal judge declined to issue a preliminary injunction, which would have stopped the law from taking effect. A three-judge panel for the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston on Thursday upheld that decision, leaving the magazine ban in place.
Under the 2022 law, gun-owners had 180 days to modify their high-capacity magazines, sell them to out-of-state buyers or turn them in to police. After the grace period, anyone found with a high-capacity magazine could face up to five years in prison.
The lawsuit by the Rhode Island gun owners alleges the state law violated the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition against the government unjustifiably taking private property, and the Fourteenth Amendment’s clause guaranteeing due process under the law.
Scrutiny of the Rhode Island law comes after the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority changed the framework for evaluating gun restrictions across the country in its 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. The controversial ruling requires the government to prove that regulations are consistent with historical precedents of firearm regulation.
In their ruling, the appeals court judges said the ban was “likely consistent with our relevant tradition of gun regulation and permissible under the Second Amendment.”
Andrew Willinger, executive director of the Duke Center for Firearms Law, said the ruling is significant because it is one of the first in-depth decisions at the federal appellate level that specifically deals with the historical test set out by the Supreme Court in its Bruen ruling.
“The court here assumes large-capacity magazines are protected [by the Second Amendment],” Willinger said, “and then decides the case by going through the how and why of various historical laws and saying ‘We think they line up and can support Rhode Island’s law.’”
The ruling cites legal restrictions on Bowie knives and sawed-off shotguns as examples of similar restrictions on categories of weapons.
Willinger said he’s also watching this ruling because its reasoning could apply beyond state bans on large-capacity magazines and also apply to laws outlawing broad categories of weapons, like those restricting so-called assault weapons.
“Part of the significance of this decision isn’t just for these large-capacity magazine restrictions,” Willinger said. “It’s that the same type of analysis [required by the Bruen decision] could apply to assault-weapon bans as well.”
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, whose office is representing the state in the case, hailed the decision Thursday evening in a post on X.
An attorney for the plaintiffs said Friday they are considering next steps, “but it is likely that they will be seeking Supreme Court review in the coming months.”
This story has been updated with analysis by Andrew Willinger.