The nation’s longstanding prohibition on machine guns just survived a major legal test. A federal appeals court has overturned a Kansas trial judge’s unprecedented ruling that tried to strike the ban down as unconstitutional.
The Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the federal law barring possession of machine guns remains valid, even after the Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen decision, which reshaped the way gun laws are evaluated.
At the center of the case is Tamori Morgan, indicted in 2023 for allegedly possessing a machine gun and a conversion device known as a “Glock switch.” A lower court judge in Wichita, appointed during the Trump administration, tossed the charges last year, arguing the government failed to show any historical tradition that justified the ban under the Bruen test.
But the appellate judges disagreed. Writing for the panel, Circuit Judge Scott Matheson emphasized that machine guns do not qualify as weapons “in common use” for self-defense—a key standard first laid out in the 2008 Heller decision. According to the ruling, even if more people were using them than official data indicates, their primary use is unlawful activity, not personal protection.
The ruling underscores that Congress’s effort to rein in automatic weapons—beginning with the National Firearms Act of 1934 and expanded in 1986—still stands firm. The opinion effectively reaffirms that the Second Amendment does not extend to every type of firearm, especially those synonymous with organized crime and mass violence.
The case, United States v. Morgan, serves as a high-profile reminder: despite recent expansions of gun rights, the judiciary is not prepared to open the door to machine guns.
