Federal judge tosses Kansas machine gun possession case on Second Amendment grounds

A U.S. District Court judge in Kansas on Wednesday dismissed machine gun possession charges against a defendant, finding prosecutors hadn’t proven the weapons can be banned under the Second Amendment.

The decision marks a potentially seismic shift in firearm regulations if it is appealed and stands. Machine guns have been prohibited for decades – a ban that has remained in place even as restrictions on guns have been dramatically weakened in Kansas, Missouri and other states over time.

Judge John W. Broomes, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, dismissed two machine gun possession counts against Tamori Morgan, who was indicted by a federal grand jury in April 2023.

Broomes wrote prosecutors hadn’t met their burden under two landmark U.S. Supreme Court gun rights cases – called Bruen and Rahimi – that require firearms restrictions to have historical analogs at the time of the nation’s founding.

The government “fails to meet its burden to demonstrate that possession of the types of weapons at issue in this case are lawfully prohibited under the Second Amendment,” he wrote.

Everytown Law, a gun safety group, said laws banning machine guns are crucial to public safety and called them weapons of war.

“It’s appalling that the District Court would so brazenly put the deadly agenda of the gun lobby over the safety of Kansans. We are shocked and dismayed by this decision,” said Janet Carter, senior director of issues and appeals at Everytown Law, said in a statement.

Aaron Smith, an assistant U.S. attorney, had said in court documents that the U.S. Supreme Court had made clear the regulations of machine guns fall outside the Second Amendment. Even if Broomes concluded the Second Amendment applies to the possession of machine guns, the law is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulations – the standard set in the Bruen decision.

In his decision, Broomes acknowledged that prosecutors may prove in the future that machine guns can be restricted under Bruen.

“The court expresses no opinion as to whether the government could, in some other case, meet its burden to show a historically analogous restriction that would justify” the federal law banning machine guns, he wrote.