The District of Columbia's ban on firearm magazines holding more than 10 rounds is unconstitutional. That is now the holding of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, which on Thursday struck down the local law and reversed every conviction it had produced against Tyree Benson, the man whose 2022 case brought the challenge.
A two-judge majority on a three-judge panel found that magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds are "arms in common and ubiquitous use by law-abiding citizens" and that an outright ban on them violates the Second Amendment.
The United States government, which originally prosecuted Benson and defended the ban on appeal, switched sides during briefing and conceded the ban is unconstitutional. The District of Columbia stood alone in defending it.
Judge Joshua Deahl wrote the majority opinion. His analysis began with the sheer scale of the firearms market the District tried to regulate out of existence.
"Magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition are ubiquitous in our country, numbering in the hundreds of millions, accounting for about half of the magazines in the hands of our citizenry, and they come standard with the most popular firearms sold in America today."
From there, the legal conclusion followed directly. Deahl wrote that the court agreed with both Benson and the United States that the District's "outright ban" on these magazines violates the Second Amendment, Fox News reports.
The reversal did not stop at the magazine charge. Deahl explained that because Benson's firearm was equipped with a magazine over the 10-round limit, he could not have lawfully registered the weapon, obtained a carry license, or possessed ammunition for it under DC law. The court therefore reversed all four of Benson's convictions: violating the magazine-capacity ban, possession of an unregistered firearm, carrying a pistol without a license, and unlawful possession of ammunition.
"We therefore reverse Benson's conviction for violating the District's magazine capacity ban. And because Benson could not have registered, procured a license to carry, or lawfully possessed ammunition for his firearm given that it was equipped with a magazine capable of holding more than 10 rounds, we likewise reverse his convictions for possession of an unregistered firearm, carrying a pistol without a license, and unlawful possession of ammunition."
That cascade effect is significant. The unconstitutional magazine ban had poisoned every related charge. Once the ban fell, the convictions built on top of it fell with it.
One of the more striking details in this case is the posture of the United States. Federal prosecutors brought the original case against Benson and defended the magazine ban's constitutionality in the initial round of appellate briefing. Then they reversed course and conceded the ban violates the Second Amendment.
Judge Deahl noted the shift plainly in his opinion.
"The United States, which prosecuted Benson in the underlying case and defended the ban's constitutionality in the initial round of appellate briefing, now concedes that this ban violates the Second Amendment. The District of Columbia, which is also a party to this appeal, continues to defend the constitutionality of its ban."
That left the District of Columbia as the sole defender of its own law, arguing a position that even the federal government no longer supports.
Chief Judge Anna Blackburne-Rigsby dissented. Her objection centered on the majority's "common usage" analysis, meaning the constitutional test for whether a particular arm is in widespread, ordinary use by citizens and therefore protected by the Second Amendment.
Blackburne-Rigsby argued that ownership statistics cited by the majority showed only that magazines holding 11, 15, or 17 rounds are in common use. She wrote that the majority failed to address whether a 30-round magazine, the specific type Benson possessed, meets that standard for self-defense purposes.
"The majority, however, fails to contend with the reality that these statistics do not support the conclusion that the particularly lethal 30-round magazine, such as the one Mr. Benson possessed here, is in common use for self-defense. It simply is not."
The majority did not draw that distinction. Deahl's opinion treated the ban as an "outright ban" on all magazines over 10 rounds and analyzed constitutionality at that level, not magazine-by-magazine.
The District of Columbia has options. The New York Times reported that DC can appeal the decision to the Supreme Court or ask the District of Columbia Court of Appeals to reconsider the ruling with a larger panel of judges, a procedure known as rehearing en banc. No filings or deadlines for either path have been publicly announced.
There is also an open conflict in DC's own court system. The New York Times reported that in a previous case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, a separate federal appellate court, upheld the constitutionality of the same local magazine-capacity law. How those two rulings interact has not been publicly clarified.
The District of Columbia has long served as a laboratory for the most aggressive gun restrictions in the country. It was the jurisdiction behind the landmark Supreme Court case that established an individual right to bear arms, and it has continued testing the boundaries of that right ever since. The magazine ban was one of those tests.
The numbers Judge Deahl cited tell the story. Hundreds of millions of magazines over 10 rounds. About half of all magazines in civilian hands. Standard equipment with the most popular firearms sold in America. Banning them is not regulating a niche product. It is prohibiting something that roughly half the gun-owning public already possesses.
Benson was taken into custody in 2022, according to The New York Times, for possessing a handgun with a magazine that could contain 30 rounds. He has now had every conviction from that case reversed. The law that put him in the system has been declared unconstitutional by the court that reviewed it.
The District can keep fighting. It can petition for rehearing or take the case to the Supreme Court. But it will do so defending a ban that even the federal prosecutors who enforced it no longer believe passes constitutional muster. That is the position DC has chosen: alone, against the text, and against the numbers.
