The D.C. Court of Appeals recently granted rehearing en banc in this case, which vacated the
March 5, 2026 panel decision described below.1 The case will be reargued before the full court, and the analysis in this post reflects the panel decision as issued.
On March 5, 2026, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals invalidated D.C.’s ban on magazines holding more than ten rounds and vacated the defendant’s related firearm convictions. In Benson v. United States,2 the majority framed these magazines as “arms” protected by the Second Amendment when they are in “common and ubiquitous use” by law-abiding citizens and found no historical tradition permitting blanket bans on such items. Applying the Supreme Court’s Heller/Bruen/Rahimi framework, the court found no tradition of prohibiting arms in common use and rejected analogies like gunpowder storage limits and Bowie knife regulations, which were regulations, not bans.
