A Wapiti man suing for the right to make his own machine gun has fired back at the federal government after the feds asked the judge to dismiss his case.
Jake DeWilde on Monday filed a new version of his original complaint in the U.S. District Court for Wyoming, this time focusing specifically on the language of the Second Amendment. The lawsuit comes after the Bureau for Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) in December denied DeWilde’s application to make his own M16 machine gun rifle.
DeWilde’s earlier complaint from January accused the federal government of overreach for a federal law and a rule banning machine guns made after 1986, except for the military.
His new complaint hones in both on a citizen’s right to keep and bear arms, and the necessity of a well-regulated militia – both principles taken straight from the Second Amendment.
Feds Ask Judge To Throw It Out
Federal attorneys on behalf of U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms last week asked Scott Skavdahl, chief U.S. District Judge for Wyoming, to dismiss DeWilde’s case, saying machine guns are “dangerous and unusual” in a way that the Second Amendment does not permit.
“In the Colonial and Revolutionary War era, (small-arms) weapons used by militiamen and weapons used in defense of person and home were one and the same,” countered DeWilde in his new filing, quoting from earlier case law.
DeWilde is representing himself in the case.
He then added in his own words, “The M16 is the quintessential rifle for use in the modern militia, just as the musket was the quintessential rifle for use in the militia of the colonial and revolutionary war era.”
DeWilde’s lawsuit also references the 2022 opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn. Inc. vs. Bruen which, he says, concludes that the government can’t outlaw “dangerous and unusual” weapons if they are in “common use.”
The decision in the Bruen case pertained to handguns, which the U.S. Supreme Court majority said would have been considered “dangerous and unusual” when the Second Amendment was written but can’t be outlawed now because they are in “common use” for self-defense.
The M16 rifle, DeWilde argues, also is in common use for the U.S. military and so should be legal for citizens and militias.
