A federal judge ruled late last week that D.C.’s longstanding ban on high-capacity gun magazines is constitutional, saying that there’s no practical or historical reason that gun-owners in the city should need more than the 10 bullets per magazine that are currently allowed.

The decision marks the second defeat this year for gun advocates’ attempts to loosen the city’s strict restrictions on gun possession in the wake of  June 2022 Supreme Court ruling that raises the bar for justifying restrictions on gun ownership and possession. In January, another federal judge ruled that three D.C. residents and one Virginia resident who sued to overturn D.C.’s ban on carrying guns on Metro actually had no standing to bring their lawsuit.

Last August, four gun-owning plaintiffs — two who live in D.C., one in Virginia, and the last in Maryland — sued D.C. over its prohibition on magazines that hold more than 10 bullets, arguing that the ban “lacks any historical justification, is arbitrary and capricious, and unnecessarily impinges on the core right of self-protection.” (Maryland has a similar law on the books, while Virginia has no restrictions on high-capacity magazines.) The plaintiffs asked Judge Rudolph Contreras to declare D.C.’s ban unconstitutional and prohibit the city from enforcing it.

But in his 40-page ruling last Thursday, Contreras did just the opposite, finding that the city’s ban does not violate the Second Amendment. He wrote that high-capacity magazines do not merit constitutional protection because they have traditionally been linked to military service and are not necessary for self-defense; he cited studies that have found that most people using their guns for self-defense only shoot between two and three bullets.

“It suffices to say that the District’s [high-capacity magazine] ban, which limits magazine capacity to ten bullets, enables law-abiding people in D.C. to possess magazines with ample ammunition to defend themselves,” he wrote.

Contreras also addressed the new standards set by the Supreme Court last year requiring the government to show that any restrictions on guns are rooted in the country’s historic traditions, and are not simply justified by a significant government interest.

“The historical tradition of high-capacity regulations in the 1920s and 1930s — over a hundred years ago — does not contradict any earlier evidence, and it supports the constitutionality of the District’s ban,” he wrote. “Just as states and the District enacted sweeping laws restricting possession of high-capacity weapons in an attempt to reduce violence during the Prohibition era, so can the District now.”

In a statement, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb celebrated the court’s ruling in favor of D.C.’s ban on high-capacity magazines.

“The District’s ban on large capacity magazines is constitutional and a matter of common sense,” he said. “The Office of the Attorney General will continue using every tool at our disposal to make our communities safer today and in the long run, and we will continue defending D.C.’s common sense gun regulations against legal challenges.”

George Lyon, a D.C.-based lawyer with Arsenal Attorneys who sued on behalf of the four gun-owners, says he plans to appeal the ruling. Lyon has filed a number of lawsuits against D.C. over the years targeting its its gun restrictions, including last year’s lawsuit aiming to overturn the city’s ban on gun possession on Metro. Earlier this week, Lyon filed an appeal in that case, arguing the four plaintiffs in that case do have standing to challenge the ban.

Litigation of this sort has largely shaped D.C.’s existing gun laws, as well as the legal landscape nationally. Most prominently, the city’s former ban on handguns led to the Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller decision, which declared an individual right to own a handgun and pushed the city to allow handgun ownership. Six years later, a federal judge overturned the city’s ban on carrying handguns outside the home, and a subsequent ruling declared that D.C. couldn’t require residents to show a good reason to carry a concealed handgun.

D.C. residents and visitors to the city are allowed to carry concealed handguns, but are restricted as to where those guns can actually be carried.