Appeal filed in Kansas machine gun case
KANSAS (KSNT) - The U.S. government is appealing a ruling in the case of a Kansas man who was charged with possessing machine guns.
Last month U.S. District Court of Kansas dismissed the case. United States Attorney for the District of Kansas, Kate E. Brubacher, filed a motion to appeal the ruling under the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit on Monday. The action came six days prior to the 30-day appeal window.
According to the Dean of the School of Law at Washburn University, Jeffrey Jackson, now that the appeal has been filed the next step is the court docketing the case and setting a briefing schedule. Jackson said this could take up to two weeks.
"Usually, the petitioner's brief is due 40 days after everything gets set up," Jackson said. "After that, the respondent gets 30 days to file a brief. In the meantime the Court sets the case for argument, which usually takes around three months, more or less, from the time the last brief is filed."
According to Jackson, the appeal process could take five to six months; but could take longer or shorter. He said the Tenth Circuit has the fastest resolution time of all federal courts but wasn't expecting movement anytime soon.
In the original order the court dismissed the case after it found “the plain text of the Second Amendment does not cover the possession of machineguns.”
The decision by Judge John Broomes hinged on the Bruen and Rahimi requirement to demonstrate historical analogs that prove the ban is consistent with the nation’s history. Broomes found the government hadn’t met its burden to prove historical analogs.
“To summarize, in this case, the government has not met its burden under Bruen and Rahimi to demonstrate through historical analogs that regulation of the weapons at issue in this case are consistent with the nation’s history of firearms regulation. Indeed, the government has barely tried to meet that burden,” the case document read.
To read more about the case, click here.
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