Two gun owners challenging the District of Columbia’s magazine ban have asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to skip the usual three-judge panel and hear their appeal with the full court from the start.
The case is Wehr-Darroca v. District of Columbia. The plaintiffs sued on December 18, 2024, challenging the District’s ban on magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds. Their complaint argues that the magazines at issue “are not dangerous and unusual, but instead are standard components of the sorts of bearable arms in common use for lawful purposes.”
The case never reached the constitutional question. The federal district court dismissed it under existing D.C. Circuit precedent that requires plaintiffs to make a heightened showing of a specific threat of prosecution before they can challenge a law like this. In plain terms, gun owners who comply with the ban because they refuse to risk arrest and prosecution can be told they have no right to challenge it in court, precisely because they obeyed it.
On October 15, the plaintiffs petitioned for an initial hearing en banc, asking the full court to take the case now and remove that barrier. Their opening brief adds a fallback request: if the full court declines, a three-judge panel should correct the outdated precedent on its own and reverse the dismissal.
Standing rules decide which cases ever get heard, so the stakes here are practical. If the dismissal stands, the District’s magazine ban stays shielded from a direct Second Amendment challenge by the very people it restricts, whatever the Supreme Court’s Bruen standard might say about the ban itself. A ruling from the full D.C. Circuit would settle how these challenges can proceed in the District for years.
The appeal is docketed as D.C. Circuit No. 25-7159. The district court case is No. 1:24-cv-03504 (D.D.C.).
Source: The Gun Magazine, Grassroots Judicial Report, October 21, 2026 (https://www.thegunmag.com/october-21-2026-grassroots-judicial-report/)
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