A voter-approved Oregon gun control law violates the state constitution, a judge ruled Tuesday, continuing to block it from taking effect and casting fresh doubt over the future of the embattled measure.
The law requires people to undergo a criminal background check and complete a gun safety training course in order to obtain a permit to buy a firearm. It also bans high-capacity magazines.
The plaintiffs in the federal case, which include the Oregon Firearms Federation, have appealed the ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The case could potentially go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
New precedent trumps old precedent. It’s why Brown v Board is the law of the land and Plessy v Ferguson isn’t. There (to my knowledge) hasn’t been a challenge to the NFA that’s reached the Supreme Court since that Caetano case in 2016 and the court hasn’t explicitly struck down the prior precedent of its legality, so it still stands based on the other points in the ruling. Even the current NFA-related cases against bump stock and pistol brace bans working through courts are based more on whether the ATF can consider them as NFA items rather than whether the NFA itself can be considered constitutional, so it’s likely to stick around.