D.C. Gets the Smackdown It Deserves

If you’ve been following the legal circus out of Washington, D.C., you already know this thing just keeps delivering.

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And according to analysis from Washington Gun Law’s William Kirk, the latest development in Benson v. United States is another rough day for the District.

We’re talking full-on denial across the board.

The D.C. Attorney General’s office came in hot, asking the court to fast-track everything, skip key steps, and basically treat this case like a five-alarm emergency.

The court’s response? “No.”

Not once. Not twice. But repeatedly. Requests to bypass normal procedure? Denied. Push for immediate en banc review? Denied. Demand to rush the opposing side? Also denied.

In other words, the court wasn’t buying the panic. And that’s where things get interesting.

Because one judge, in a concurring opinion highlighted by Washington Gun Law, essentially called out the District for what it looks like: manufacturing a crisis.

According to the court, the supposed “chaos” from striking down D.C.’s magazine ban doesn’t really exist at least not in the real world.

Here’s the kicker. The federal government had already stopped prosecuting violations of the 11+ round magazine ban more than six months ago.

So the argument that overturning it would suddenly unleash mayhem? Yeah… the court wasn’t impressed.

Even better, D.C. tried to lean on the classic “floodgates” argument. You know, the idea that once a restriction is lifted, the streets will instantly fill with dangerous items.

The judge’s response boiled down to: show me the evidence. Spoiler alert: there wasn’t any.

In fact, the court pointed out that nearly half of firearm prosecutions in D.C. already involved magazines over the limit, even with the ban in place.

So if the law was supposed to stop that… it wasn’t doing a great job.

Shocking, right? But the real gut punch came when the court highlighted something D.C. didn’t want to talk about.

The reason certain charges couldn’t be enforced wasn’t because the law was struck down. It’s because the District refused to allow people to legally register firearms that complied with the rules they created.

Read that again. The system broke… because the system refused to function. And according to the court, fixing it would be simple: just comply with the ruling and allow lawful registration.

Problem solved. Overnight. Instead, the District doubled down, pushing urgency, panic, and yes, a little legal drama.

Which brings us to maybe the most quietly brutal moment in the ruling. D.C. asked the court to force the opposing side to respond faster than usual, despite taking nearly the full time themselves to file their own paperwork.

The court essentially called that out as… let’s say, bold. Or as Kirk might put it, a bit of “chutzpah.” So where does this leave things?

The bigger fight, whether the full court will take up the case, is still pending. But if that doesn’t happen, D.C. has two options: Live with the ruling… or take it upstairs to the U.S. Supreme Court.

And if you’ve been watching this unfold, you can probably guess which direction they’re leaning. Because if there’s one thing this case has proven so far, it’s this: The legal battle over magazine bans isn’t slowing down.

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