First Circuit puzzled by challenge to Massachusetts handgun ban

A three-judge First Circuit panel heard arguments on Massachusetts handgun sale restrictions that require features like load indicators and magazine safety disconnects, effectively barring popular models such as the Glock 17 and Sig Sauer P365 from sale in the state. A Trump administration Justice Department lawyer joined gun dealers in calling the restrictions a 'preposterous' historical outlier; Massachusetts countered that the rules only touch sales, not possession, and that 76,000 handguns sold in 2024 across 560 models show the law doesn't burden gun rights.

Judge Julie Rikelman was unmoved by the sales-only distinction, comparing it to banning ink purchases while claiming no First Amendment issue, and pressed the state on how few models would count as too few. Chief Judge David Barron, for his part, repeatedly asked aloud what the court was supposed to do, seeming genuinely stuck on how to apply historical analogy to safety features nobody needed in the 18th century.

The lower court had upheld the law on two separate grounds, but the panel spent its hearing time picking apart both without settling on either, leaving the fate of a law regulating some of the country's best-selling firearms about as clear as it was before the gavel dropped.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.