David Codrea: Court filing argues post-1986 machine gun ban 'defies Constitution'

Claiming the “ban on the quintessential militia arm of the modern day defies the protections our Constitution guarantees,” the legal team led by attorney Stephen D. Stamboulieh filed a sur-reply February 27 in the case of plaintiff Jay Aubrey Isaac Hollis against Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Director B. Todd Jones. The additional reply was in response to “defendants’ reply to plaintiff’s response in opposition to defendants’ motion to dismiss, or in the alternative, for summary judgment.”

Hollis, acting individually and as trustee of a revocable living trust, is suing Holder and Jones in their official capacities for administering, executing and enforcing “statutory and regulatory provisions [that] generally act as an unlawful de facto ban on the transfer or possession of a machine gun manufactured after May 19, 1986.”

That Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas Dallas Division (the court's Fort Worth Division last month declared the interstate handgun transfer ban unconstitutional) used her discretion and permitted a sur-reply indicates an interest in the plaintiff’s arguments, and if the government can be responsive to them. That she then issued a March 3 order giving the defendants until March 11 to file a sur-sur reply could indicate she has concerns over the lack of substance on government filings submitted to date, and is not even sure if defendants will produce anything more than continued obfuscation and misdirection.

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