While not at all a gun bunny, I find charm in what I would call "stupid court cases."
A Google Alert set for "Anoka County" yielded a link to this an Action4Liberty story about a stupid court case:
Keith Ellison Wins Court Case to Infringe on 2nd Amendment Rights
The Minnesota Court of Appeals just ruled in favor of Attorney General Keith Ellison that the government has the ability to infringe on the rights of individuals who keep and bear arms they made themselves. This case stems from a gun made by an individual that allegedly lacked an arbitrary serial number on it.
In February of 2022, state troopers responded to a vehicle rollover. The driver, a young man named Logan Hunter Vagel, was transporting a pistol and informed the trooper he did not have a permit to carry it. The trooper located the firearm and concluded that it was not marked with a serial number. Vagel was charged by Anoka County attorneys with "possession of a firearm that is not identified by a serial number, in violation of Minnesota Statutes section 609.667(3)."
Since federal laws do not require a serial number on self-made firearms, Vagel moved to dismiss the charge for lack of probable cause. The court agreed with him and dismissed the charge.
[... On appeal] the Appellate Court ruled:
Minnesota Statutes section 609.667(3), which prohibits the possession of a firearm that is not identified by a serial number, is not unconstitutionally vague as applied to Vagle’s possession of a privately made firearm without a serial number. The district court erred by granting Vagle’s motion to dismiss the section 609.667(3) charge for lack of probable cause. Reversed and remanded.
This is a sad blow to our fundamental right to keep and bear arms. Judges act more as agents of the state, propping up unconstitutional overreaches of power, than arbiters of individual rights and liberties.
There's no stronger language in law than "shall not be infringed," yet lawyers manufacture exceptions to the Supreme law of the land all the time.
[bolding in original] Well, adding the appellate court's hair-splitting is needed to see the degree of stupidity involved:
In full, Minnesota Statutes section 609.667 provides:
Whoever commits any of the following acts may be
sentenced to imprisonment for not more than five years or to
payment of a fine of not more than $10,000, or both:
(1) obliterates, removes, changes, or alters the serial
number or other identification of a firearm;
(2) receives or possesses a firearm, the serial number or
other identification of which has been obliterated, removed,
changed, or altered; or
(3) receives or possesses a firearm that is not identified
by a serial number.
As used in this section, “serial number or other
identification” means the serial number and other information
required under United States Code, title 26, section 5842, for
the identification of firearms.
Minn. Stat. § 609.667.
Vagle acknowledges that section 609.667(3) “clearly states that it is a crime to possess a firearm without a serial number.” Vagle also concedes, and the record reflects, that he knowingly possessed a firearm that is not identified by a serial number.
As a result, Vagle’s conduct falls squarely within section 609.667(3)’s scope: “possess[ing] a firearm that is not identified by a serial number.”
Vagle’s position that Minnesota Statutes section 609.667(3) does not apply to his possession of a privately made firearm—and the district court’s conclusion that section 609.667(3) is unconstitutionally vague—relies on section 609.667’s definition of the term, “serial number or other identification[,]” which refers to United States Code, title 26, section 5842. Vagle contends that, because section 609.667 incorporates a provision of
the United States Code in defining the foregoing phrase, the prohibition in section 609.667(3) is limited to firearms that are required to have a serial number under federal law, and the state has not established that Vagle’s privately made firearm falls within that scope. We are not persuaded.
The phrase “serial number or other identification”—which Minnesota Statutes section 609.667 defines by reference to United States Code, title 26, section 5842—appears in both section 609.667(1) and section 609.667(2). [...] But section 609.667(3), under which the state charged Vagle, does not use the phrase, “serial number or other identification.” Instead, section 609.667(3) criminalizes the possession of “a firearm that is not identified by a serial number.” Nothing in that unambiguous prohibition limits the purview of the serial number requirement set forth in section 609.667(3) to the scope provided by section 5842. As a result, section 609.667(3)’s plain language prohibits the possession of any firearm that is not identified by a serial number, regardless of whether federal law would require a serial number for a particular firearm. This prohibition encompasses privately made firearms, including the firearm Vagle possessed in this case.
That is true about what the statute says. However, impossibility raises its ugly head. If as it appears Vagle only made the singular firearm, it was not made in a series, and hence could not have a serial number.
Presume Vagle could have taken a magic marker and put a line on the weapon somewhere, and then said, "It is serial number 1." Then the court could use the impossibility argument, that if not made in a series, Vagle wrongfully placed a "serial number" on a weapon not made in a series.
It could cut either way. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. That's not good law.
Bottom line: If there is no series, there logically cannot be a serial number, thus saying if you make your own handgun, and make only one, you're screwed, yet if you make a second and use a magic marker to put "1" and then "2" sequentially on each of the two separate weapons, you skate.
That is absurd. The defense of impossibility - if there is no series it is impossible to have a serial number seems controlling. Indeed, compelling. The Second Amendment seems strong enough to justify "no number, if there is no series." Common sense alone justifies it.
And you see why I call it a stupid case, yes/no? Hopefully it will go unpublished, not precedent. It is a case that never should have been filed. Why was it?
And Jake Duesenberg is an idiot for posting that headline and image.
And - closing - for some reason this reminds me of Charles Dickens' noting of the law as it stood at his time, "The law makes a man liable for the torts of his wife because it presumes he controls her actions. If the law presumes that the law is an ass." Of course that legal fiction applied because all property was owned by the male spouse then, so the presumption was formed to make judgments collectable; while today we have moved from such patriarchy, even allowing the wife to vote and own property.