Court of Appeals reverses dismissal of RMGO's lawsuit over magazine ban
In a decision issued today, a panel of the Colorado Court of Appeals reversed the trial court's dismissal of RMGO's lawsuit over the constitutionality of the 2013 magazine ban. They instead directed that the trial court have a trial over the issue. The lawsuit was filed making only claims under the Colorado Constitution's right to keep and bear arms, found at Article 2 Section 13 of the Colorado Constitution. The court agreed that if a trial found RMGO's allegations about the scope of the ban and its effect were correct, that the law could be unconstitutional. However, since the Denver District Court Judge decided that the opposite was true - i.e. that a near total ban on firearms by banning their magazines was still constitutional under Article 2 Section 13, Judge Madden gave the State summary judgment without a trial. The Court of Appeals decided he was wrong. The Court of Appeals did decide that the private sale ban was not unconstitutional, and it sustained the dismissal of claims as to that law, also enacted in the 2013 Bloomberg funded gun control frenzy.
At this point either RMGO or the State could ask the Colorado Supreme Court to review the issues in the case. Otherwise the case will be sent back to Denver District Court for a trial. Further, the Court of Appeals was troubled with just what standard of review is applicable to the right to keep and bear arms under the Colorado Constitution. This Court specifically rejected a standard endorsed by a different Court of Appeals panel in a prior case concerning the Denver assault weapon ban. The Colorado Supreme Court could agree to revisit its decision in Robertson v Denver, which ripped all of the teeth out of the right to keep and bear arms under the Colorado Constitution, and resolve this conflict between different panels of the Court of Appeals.
Incidentally, the Colorado Court of Appeals also rejected the idea that the extra-legal modifications that the Attorney General's office created through their "Technical Guidance" letters to the magazine ban were valid or controlling interpretations of the law. Those fictions were also endorsed in the Colorado Federal District Court's decision in the Federal lawsuit over the magazine ban, to try to keep it constitutional. However they were also rejected by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in reversing the trial court decision. As written the ban affects virtually all magazines, regardless of their capacity, since almost any can be expanded by the use of an extension. Further the ban as written bars repair parts and parts kits. It was clearly written to ban all magazine fed firearms (whether semi-auto or not) by banning magazines. The dubious Technical Guidance letters were an effort by John Suthers and David Kopel (attorney for the Plaintiffs in the Federal lawsuit) to make the laws less all encompassing, and thus to keep them from being struck down. RMGO wants the laws to be judged on what they say and what the Legislature passed, not a backroom deal made to try to salvage the laws.
https://www.courts.state.co.us/Court...4CA2178-PD.pdf
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Originally Posted by spqrzilla
