The United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Sept. 1 that machine guns and suppressors are not protected by the Second Amendment under the standard set in the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.
The court also found that registration requirements for suppressors did not infringe the Second Amendment.
The decision was “as applied,” meaning that the court found that the machine-gun ban and suppressor registration are constitutional as applied in Berger’s case.
“Gun bans are strong medicine. But occasionally, they are just what the doctor ordered,” Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote in the first line of the decision.
In June 2024, Joseph Raymond Berger, 69, and his son, Joseph Paul Berger, 35, of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, were sentenced to 36 months of supervised release and 37 months’ imprisonment, respectively, for illegal weapons possession, according to a U.S. Department of Justice press release.
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According to the court record, federal agents intercepted three silencers sent from China to the Bergers’ house. They served a search warrant for the property and found 13 fully automatic variants of the AK-47 and 12 silencers.
They also discovered evidence that the pair had bought parts to convert semi-automatic guns into machine guns.
The men were indicted in February 2022 and pleaded guilty on Feb. 28, 2024. The younger Berger appealed his conviction, claiming that, under Bruen, possessing the firearms and suppressors was constitutional.
AK-47-style rifles on display at the National Rifle Association’s Annual Meetings and Exhibits in Indianapolis, Ind., on April 15, 2023. Michael Clements/The Epoch Times
In June 2022, the high court ruled that gun control laws must align with the Second Amendment’s language and have a “historical analog” from the time of the amendment’s ratification.
The Third Circuit ruled that while machine guns are firearms under Bruen, they have been declared “dangerous and unusual” in the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA).
The court referenced another landmark case, District of Columbia v. Heller, which found that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep arms.
However, the Third Circuit judges noted that in that decision, the late Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that it “‘would be a startling reading of’ our Second Amendment jurisprudence to construe it to protect possessing machine guns.”
Under the NFA, only machine guns registered before 1986, or those purchased by law enforcement agencies, can be legally transferred by Federal Firearms License dealers.
Reactions to Decision
Gun rights proponents criticized the ruling as a misunderstanding of Bruen and the Second Amendment.
In an email to The Epoch Times, the Second Amendment Foundation stated that the decision failed to acknowledge that machine guns are not in common use for lawful purposes because they have been heavily regulated.
“The Third Circuit’s analysis also ignores the common defense and anti-tyranny purposes of the Second Amendment which are critical to any complete historical analysis,” the statement reads.
A statement from the Firearms Policy Coalition called the decision “horrifically flawed,” and vowed to continue the legal fight.
“We aren’t going to let one bad opinion stop us from doing whatever it takes to restore freedom and end these authoritarian laws,” the statement reads.
Gun control and gun safety groups did not respond to requests seeking comment for this story, but they have vociferously opposed any attempts to dilute the NFA or reduce regulations. They promote violence intervention strategies, strict gun control—including bans—and tighter regulation of the firearms industry, among other things.
They say stricter rules can help prevent mass shootings, school shootings, and violent crime involving firearms.
“The gun homicide rate in the U.S. is 26 times higher than that of other developed countries, but research shows that common-sense public safety laws can reduce gun violence and save lives,” Everytown for Gun Safety states on its website.
