Cheeseman v Platkin

[Billy Bob]

I just received an email from the FPC that their challenge to the NJ AWB is being heard en banc in the 3rd Circuit today. 

 

https://www.firearmspolicy.org/cheeseman

 

William Kirk put up a video yesterday. It seems NJ had a bit of a hissy fit over an amicus brief that the DOJ submitted in the case.

 

 

[Billy Bob]

They took the YouTube video down, but I found this on rumble. 

 

https://rumble.com/v70c82g-cheeseman-v.-platkin-3rd-circuit-full-hearing.html?e9s=src_v1_s%2Csrc_v1_s_m&sci=41ee5f31-854e-45b7-8dee-12642559ef20

[Euler]

The WGL video is still there.

[Tango7]

I got on a legal issues mail chain for some reason, and saw this today:

 

 

While IANAL, two points.

 

• According to some in the FFL business, the AR has been the biggest selling platform for over a decade. If it's the most popular firearm type out there, one would think it was "common", and not "unusual".
• While the interpretation often depends on the leaning of the reader, the wording of the 2nd doesn't mention "dangerous" or "unusual". That's thanks to the 1934 National Firearms Act, and it should be hard to prove the AR is much different that the Remington Model 8, a semi-automatic rifle designed in 1905, that could accept extended magazines like these:

 

I excluded the Henry (15), Winchester (18) and Evans because despite their huge magazines for the era (the Evans held 26 rounds), their mags are fixed.

 

[EdDinIL]

With so many cases already waiting for SCOTUS review, does Mark @ 4BD really think this case will be the nationwide undoing of AWBs, or his he just trolling the outgoing AG?

 

 

 

[Euler]

Federal District Court of New Jersey: docket

On June 30, 2022, the complaint was filed.

On July 30, 2024, the judge ruled on several consolidated cases (ANJRPC v Platkin, Cheeseman v Platkin, and Ellman v Platkin) that NJ's AR-15 ban is unconstitutional and that NJ's "large capacity" magazine ban is constitutional. ANJRPC, Cheeseman, and Ellman immediately appealed the magazine portion to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.

On August 5, 2024, NJ appealed the AR-15 portion of the ruling to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.

Third Circuit Court of Appeals: docket (as ANJRPC v Platkin)

On August 6, 2024, the court docketed the appeals.

On August 22, 2024, the court consolidated the appeals.

On June 10, 2025, the court scheduled oral arguments for July 1.

On July 1, 2025, the panel heard oral arguments.

On August 21, 2025, the court scheduled en banc oral arguments for October 15 (i.e., before there was a panel ruling).

On October 15, 2025, the en banc court heard oral arguments.

On July 6, 2026, the court ordered parties to submit supplemental briefs addressing the effect of the recent Supreme Court Wolford and Hemani opinions on this case.

Edited July 8, 2026 at 05:19 AM by Euler

[EdDinIL]

 

 

[Euler]

On July 10, parties submitted their supplemental briefs.

On July 17, the court issued its opinion as noted above. 10-4-1 (one judge concurred in part and dissented in part)

The "new" 3rd Circuit has been described as only slightly majority conservative (by like 1 or 2 seats). 10-4 is more than slight. It would mean that 2 or 3 judges who are usually considered "liberal" (American definition) voted with the conservatives. (Indeed, the law should just be about the law. It shouldn't be "liberal" v conservative. Hooray.)

Edited July 18, 2026 at 12:08 AM by Euler

[Dumak_from_arfcom]

This is big. An actual en banc circuit split.  

 

I'll relay what my lawyer friend told me:  A circuit split often broadens the opinion from SCOTUS in that they issue an opinion that sets a national rule rather than a fact bound opinion. Fact bound opinions primarily focus on how the lower courts got it wrong which often leads to a narrow opinion open to a lot of interpretation by lower courts.  Our briefs for both Viramontes and Barnett just became even more critical because now we can argue for a much broader opinion in Viramontes and cite the circuit split and argue that the broader restrictions within PICA need to be addressed now rather than later through a GVR. 

 

My opinion is, this is big, and the commies know it because they are crying all over social media.  NJ's AG pointed out that all the other circuit courts have upheld semi-auto bans. Well they can no longer use that as one of their main arguments for upholding semi-auto bans. The liberal justices also can no longer point to the lack of a circuit split when they debate with the conservative justices.  

 

In addition, the circuit split makes it practically impossible for CT and Cook to attempt to moot the case. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[lilguy]

Does the federal court finding New Jerseys AW and mag ban unconstitutional effect what happens in SCOTUS next term?

Edited July 18, 2026 at 05:21 AM by lilguy

[Dumak_from_arfcom]

https://assets.nationbuilder.com/firearmspolicycoalition/pages/6504/attachments/original/1784307428/2026.07.17_125_OPINION.pdf?1784307428


I'm reading the decision.  It is 11:30pm.  I'll go through as much as I can and pick out what looks juicy.  

 

So far the only thing I don't like is they don't seem to apply the ruling to handguns or shotguns or other semi-auto long guns. Maybe they see handguns as settled... but oh.. looks like they sent it back down for handguns and shotguns.  Why.. SMH.  

It looks like a huge chunk of my comments before pg 35 got clipped out somehow.  I dunno why.   

PG 35.   Here is something I think is very noteworthy.  They don't rule on other semi-auto rifles only AR15s.  They claim there wasn't enough record on other semi-auto rifles to include them in the ruling.  This is where Barnett could come in handy because Barnett's briefs and oral arguments in the Southern District of IL covered functions and features of hundreds of different rifles for the record. 

 

PG 40.   They are discussing Rahimi and why its more nuanced approach to societal concerns shouldn't apply, and why they are sticking with the 2-step test.  

 

PG 41.    They reason that States would call everything an "unprecedented" concern and that would become the norm rather than the 2-step test. 

Quote

Together, these examples showed that since “the earliest days of the common law, firearm regulations have included provisions barring people from misusing weapons to harm or menace others.” Id. at 693.27 weapon regulation too narrowly, every case could present an “unprecedented” concern and the exception would swallow the rule. Id. at 28.

 

PG 42.  They are looking at the law enforcement carve outs and showing how the bar for citizens is so high that there have been no citizens to get an exception. Sadly, they don't get into any equal protection violations.   

PG 44.  They list examples of what constitutes lawful purposes!  Second, even if they are used in crimes, they are overwhelmingly used for lawful purposes.  

Quote

But the record tells another story. The District Court found that these weapons are used for lawful purposes including self-defense, target shooting, hunting, and pest control, and that their build and design features, such as their mild recoil, ergonomics, and accuracy make them “a good choice for self-defense.” App. 57.

Quote

But statistics on actual usage for self-defense are not revealing here, because even if a weapon is rarely employed in incidents requiring self-defense, it may still be commonly possessed for that lawful purpose or other lawful purposes, such as hunting. New Jersey also points to data showing that semi-automatic rifles are disproportionately used in certain crimes and argues that this demonstrates that those weapons are not commonly used for lawful purposes. But that conclusion does not follow from the data. Even if semi-automatic rifles are disproportionately used in some crimes, those may still represent a small fraction of those weapons’ overwhelmingly lawful use.

 

PG 45.  Semi-autos and machine guns differ in meaningful ways.   Even with a bump-stock, a semi-auto is not a machine gun! 

Quote

Garland v. Cargill, 602 U.S. 406, 410 (2024) (holding that a semi-automatic weapon, even when equipped with a bump stock, is not an automatic weapon for purposes of the federal machine gun ban).

 

PG 46. They start discussing how Bruen takes the place over interest balancing. 

Quote

Together, Heller and Bruen teach that bans or broad prohibitions on possessing or carrying of a class of weapons in common use for lawful purposes fail to find support in our Nation’s tradition of firearm regulation. That is so even when the regulations are passed with the intention of reducing gun violence.32

Quote

1 As the Supreme Court made clear in Bruen, historical analogues regulating what were considered “dangerous and unusual weapons” in the past cannot support bans on arms that “are indisputably in common use for self-defense today.”

 

PG 47, 48.  They are discussing historical analogues made by the dissenting opinions, and why they don't apply. 
PG 49.  They say the analogues must come from the founding era. The Founding Era is where to look for founding era practices and tradition. 

Quote

We have held that the primary time period for the analogical inquiry is the Founding era. Lara, 125 F.4th at 441 42. So we must “guard against giving postenactment history more weight than it can rightly bear.” Id. at 434 (quoting Bruen, 597 U.S. at 35). Where no precedent from the Founding era “evinces a comparable tradition of regulation,” regulations from the mid- to late-1800s cannot bear much weight. Bruen, 597 U.S. at 27. Post-ratification practice can be evidence of Founding-era principles, but it cannot create a new tradition or contradict Founding-era practices.

 

Just my thought:  Minus the limited scope of the opinion only applying to AR15 rifles, this is really looking like an absolute beat down for the antis and I'm only on page 50.

 

PG 50-53.  They take down the Bowie-knife analogues used by other circuit courts. Too much to quote. Its worth reading all of it.  Very important! 

Quote

    But, outside of the Western Territories, only one law, in Georgia, banned the possession of Bowie knives outright. See 1837 Ga. Acts 90, §1 (1838).40 A decade after that law was enacted, the Georgia Supreme Court deemed it an unconstitutional violation of the Second Amendment as applied to everything other than concealed carry.

 PG 55.  They finalize societal concerns in Rahimi vs the 2nd half of the Bruen test.

Quote

     Finally, even if we agreed that semi-automatic rifles implicate “unprecedented societal concerns or dramatic technological changes,” that would not change the outcome here. That is because the “more nuanced approach” does not permit us to abandon the analogical inquiry prescribed by Bruen. Fundamentally, we must determine whether “modern and historical regulations impose a comparable burden on the right of armed self-defense and whether that burden is comparably justified.” Id. at 29. Even if we loosen the strictures of the analogical inquiry by more broadly construing the “how” and “why” of the analogues New Jersey proffers, regulations that restrict the carrying of certain types of arms do not impose a burden comparable to that of a de facto ban on the possession of an entire class of arms. 

 

PG56-59  The beat-down switches to magazines as they apply step 1 of Bruen.  

Quote

“magazines are ‘arms’ within the meaning of the Second Amendment.”

Quote

Therefore, “ecause magazines feed ammunition into certain guns, and ammunition is necessary for such a gun to function as intended, magazines are ‘arms’ within the meaning of the Second Amendment.”

Quote

Second, nothing in text of the Second Amendment suggests that the capacity of a magazine bears on whether it receives constitutional protection. So it cannot be that a magazine that can hold ten rounds is an “Arm[]” covered by the plain text of the Second Amendment but a magazine that can hold eleven rounds is not. Although magazines of different capacities may implicate different public policy concerns, “the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table.”

PG 60.  Magazines Step2.  They begin with the law enforcement carve out and show how civilians cannot own hi-cap magazines. 
PG 62.  Large capacity magazines are in common use. 

Quote

Of course, not all magazines satisfy New Jersey’s definition of an LCM. But the 24 million AR-15s and similar sports rifles in circulation—firearms that we have determined are in common use for lawful purposes—typically come standard with twenty- or thirty-round magazines.47 And there are over 100 million 30-round AR-15 magazines in circulation.

 
PG 63,64.  They are discussing historic analogues of magazine capacity.  They discuss the gunpowder storage laws were to limit damage in fires, they weren't meant to prevent violence. Second, it looks like they tried to apply Rahimi, but a nuanced approach isn't enough to overcome the lack of comparable analogues. 

Quote

   But gunpowder-storage laws are not “relevantly similar” to the LCM Provisions simply because both restrict quantities of ammunition. Bruen, 597 U.S. at 29; see Heller, 554 U.S. at 632 (observing that gunpowder-storage limits “did not clearly prohibit loaded weapons, but required only that excess gunpowder be kept in a special container or on the top floor of the home”). In any event, any similarity in how the laws burden the Second Amendment right cannot overcome the disparate reasons why the laws were enacted.

Quote

As with the Assault Firearm Provisions, we need not employ a “nuanced approach” to analogical reasoning about New Jersey’s LCM Provisions. Bans on weapons in common use for lawful purposes are unlawful. See Bruen, 597 U.S. at 27; Heller, 554 U.S. at 628–29. So are severe restrictions on weapons in common use for lawful purposes. See Bruen, 597 U.S. at 47. However much nuance we might employ, we could not overcome the dearth of relevantly similar Founding-era restrictions.

 

PG 67 begins a concurring opinion for the majority.  I'm too tired to continue.  I think I got all the meat and most of the potatoes. 

Edited July 18, 2026 at 06:21 AM by Dumak_from_arfcom

[Dumak_from_arfcom]

So, it looks like I was wrong. I'm being told that the decision does apply to semi-auto long guns. I thought it was limited to just ARs, and the rest were being remanded back to the lower courts. 

[Dumak_from_arfcom]

On 7/18/2026 at 12:21 AM, lilguy said:

Does the federal court finding New Jerseys AW and mag ban unconstitutional effect what happens in SCOTUS next term?

 

Cheeseman was an absolute beat down for the antis minus just a few minor things.  The majority opinion even gave a roadmap to navigate the bad parts of Rahimi. 

 

I think NJ strategy is going to go up to SCOTUS and wait for Viramontes.  But they will take the fight back to the district court for the remanded parts, in an attempt to limit the 2A gains for any GVRs that follow Viramontes.   

 

For Viramontes and Barnett. I don't think this changes anything procedural. Cheeseman and Barnett could get consolidated, but most everyone thinks that won't happen. 

 

I think what happens is that the narrow ruling SCOTUS was seeking to make in Viramontes is going to become a broader ruling.  The circuit split pretty much demands they expand the scope from just semi-autos to semi-autos and magazines. Maybe with some good amici briefs we can get it expanded to also include parts/repairs and features like threaded barrels for flash suppressors, and the shoulder things that go up. 

I wonder if it would be possible to ask for cert and consolidation with Viramontes for Barnett's semi-auto and LCM ban.  And then seek a separate cert for the remaining stuff like the ban on parts and features, registration, and equal protection (carve outs for law enforcement). 

[Yeti]

On 7/18/2026 at 4:15 PM, Dumak_from_arfcom said:

It looks like a huge chunk of my comments before pg 35 got clipped out somehow.  I dunno why. 

Guessing some merge issues as I had a comment removed.  The Mods

have plenty to do so I understand

[Euler]

On July 18, 2026 at 12:59 PM CDT, Dumak_from_arfcom said:→

...
I wonder if it would be possible to ask for cert and consolidation with Viramontes for Barnett's semi-auto and LCM ban. And then seek a separate cert for the remaining stuff like the ban on parts and features, registration, and equal protection (carve outs for law enforcement).

The Supreme Court can do anything it wants with its own dockets, but I doubt that it will add to the questions presented.

The 3rd Circuit Cheeseman opinion rules that magazines are arms, because they are required for semi-automatic weapons to function. which goes beyond the minimum requirement of merely facilitating the function of semi-automatic weapons. It seems likely to me that:

• Cheeseman and Barnett will be petitioned and held pending Viramontes;
• Viramontes will contain some statement that magazines are arms;
• Cheeseman and Barnett (and the others) will be GVR'd to be made consistent with Viramontes; and
• some of the others (e.g., Barnett) will be redone to uphold mag bans, so they'll boomerang back to the Supreme Court again a year later (2028) for the magazine question (with a circuit split).

One step at a time ...

Meanwhile, NJ will still get 30-round mags before IL.

Edited July 19, 2026 at 03:16 AM by Euler

[Dumak_from_arfcom]

On 7/18/2026 at 9:38 PM, Yeti said:

Guessing some merge issues as I had a comment removed.  The Mods

have plenty to do so I understand

I probably flubbed a C&P. 

[Dumak_from_arfcom]

On 7/18/2026 at 10:15 PM, Euler said:

The Supreme Court can do anything it wants with its own dockets, but I doubt that it will add to the questions presented.

The 3rd Circuit Cheeseman opinion rules that magazines are arms, because they are required for semi-automatic weapons to function. which goes beyond the minimum requirement of merely facilitating the function of semi-automatic weapons. It seems likely to me that:

• Cheeseman and Barnett will be petitioned and held pending Viramontes;
• Viramontes will contain some statement that magazines are arms;
• Cheeseman and Barnett (and the others) will be GVR'd to be made consistent with Viramontes; and
• some of the others (e.g., Barnett) will be redone to uphold mag bans, so they'll boomerang back to the Supreme Court again a year later (2028) for the magazine question (with a circuit split).

One step at a time ...

Meanwhile, NJ will still get 30-round mags before IL.
 

 

If we don't get a ruling on mags as part of Viramontes,  then there really is no point to this because it is just a game of wack-a-mole.

 

IL will simply pass a feature ban on semi-auto rifles with detachable mags.  So you can have your AR15s, but only if they have fixed internal magazines that hold 5 rounds or less. 

[Euler]

If the ruing in Viramontes is that rifles cannot be banned, then there's nothing about magazines that would allow IL to ban rifles.

If rifles cannot be banned, then magazines are arms. If magazines are arms, then IL cannot ban magazines.

The only remaining question would be whether magazine capacity can be restricted, because it's a question Viramontes does not address. That's how only magazines would be put off another two years.

[soundguy]

On 7/19/2026 at 4:08 PM, Euler said:

If the ruing in Viramontes is that rifles cannot be banned, then there's nothing about magazines that would allow IL to ban rifles.

If rifles cannot be banned, then magazines are arms. If magazines are arms, then IL cannot ban magazines.

The only remaining question would be whether magazine capacity can be restricted, because it's a question Viramontes does not address. That's how only magazines would be put off another two years.

 

Magazines are arms.

LC Magazines are in common use.

Seems to me that magazine capacity cannot be restricted.

 

Cheers,

Tim