A West Virginia judge blocked the law.
QUICK FACTS:
- A judge in West Virginia has ruled that the federal law banning guns with their serial numbers removed is unconstitutional.
- The law, which U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin in Charleston has now blocked, prohibited a person from transporting a gun with the serial number “altered, obliterated, or removed” across state lines.
- The law also prohibited someone from possessing such a gun that has been moved across state lines.
- The decision was part of a criminal case in which an Ohio man, Randy Price, was found to have a gun with a serial number removed inside his car during a traffic stop in Charleston.
DETAILS OF THE CASE:
- The decision was filed on Oct. 12, and found that Price, charged with illegal possession of the gun should have his charge relating to the gun dismissed.
- Price argued that the law in question was unconstitutional citing the logic laid out in a landmark ruling (pdf) by the U.S. Supreme Court in June this year: New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
- According to the verdict, the government cannot impose restrictions on Americans’ fundamental right to carry weapons for self-defense in public, except in the case where the restriction is “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
- “Only if a firearm regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s ‘unqualified command,’” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote.
- The government made the argument that the ban is constitutional due to the legality of “commercial regulation,” saying that allowance means the man doesn’t infringe on Americans’ Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
BACKGROUND:
- Other issues regarding gun control have caused questions, including FBI data from 2021 which indicated that more people were beaten to death with fists and feet than were killed by rifles last year, as American Faith previously reported.
- The UCR report stated that rifles were used in the deaths of 447 people last year, while 461 people were killed with “personal weapons” such as hands, fists, and feet.
- Another report pointed out that the UCR report covering 2021 also shows more people were stabbed or hacked to death than were killed by rifles last year.
