Judge blocks federal law banning possession of firearms with serial number removed

By Ariane de Vogue and Dan Berman, CNN

A federal judge in West Virginia has invalidated part of a federal law that prohibits the possession of a firearm with an “altered obliterated, or removed” serial number, citing the Supreme Court’s recent decision that demands a historical review of gun laws to determine their constitutionality.

“Firearms with no serial number are just as ‘bearable’ as the same firearm with a serial number,” Judge Joseph Goodwin said in his opinion Wednesday, though he acknowledged that guns missing serial numbers “are likely to be used in violent crime.”

The court’s decision is the latest to reflect how far reaching the Supreme Court has opened up new legal challenges to federal, state and local gun control laws nationwide.

This summer, in an opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court said that a gun regulation had to be justified by demonstrating that the law is “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

Goodwin, a nominee of President Bill Clinton, wrote that before the Supreme Court decided New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen last summer, the provision of the law in question would be allowed. But Bruen and Thomas’ new test changed the game, Goodwin said.

“Any modern regulation that does not comport with the historical understanding of the right is to be deemed unconstitutional, regardless of how desirable or important that regulation may be in our modern society,” Goodwin wrote on Wednesday.

The Second Amendment was adopted along with the rest of the Bill of Rights in 1791.

“A firearm without a serial number in 1791 was certainly not considered dangerous or unusual compared to other firearms because serial numbers were not required or even commonly used at that time,” Goodwin wrote.

“While I recognize there is an argument … that firearms with an obliterated serial number are likely to be used in violent crime and therefore a prohibition on their possession is desirable, that argument is the exact type of means-end reasoning the Supreme Court has forbidden me from considering.”

Wednesday’s ruling was a partial victory for an Ohio man, Randy Price, who had felony offenses of involuntary manslaughter and aggravated robbery. Goodwin upheld the federal rules barring felons from possessing firearms.

Since the June Supreme Court ruling, federal judges in at least a half-dozen different cases have cited the Bruen decision to rule against gun restrictions that have included local assault weapons bans, prohibitions on the manufacturing of homemade firearms and bans on older teenagers publicly carrying handguns.

Goodwin said he believes his is the first court to rule on the serial numbers issue.

Several other laws now face new legal challenges under the precedent, among them zoning restrictions barring shooting ranges, licensing and training laws and the federal ban on certain misdemeanor offenders from possessing firearms.

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CNN’s Tierney Sneed contributed to this report.