Ridgeway Unified Courts

JUDICIAL COUNCIL OF RIDGEWAY

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RIDGEWAY SUPERIOR COURT FOR THE COUNTY OF RIDGEWAY NICKLAUS_S, Plaintiff, v. MATTCERN, in his official capacity as Colonel of the Ridgeway State Police, Defendant. Civil Action No. RSC-CV-3940 PLAINTIFF’S CROSS-MOTION FOR JUDGMENT ON THE PLEADINGS Plaintiff Nicklaus_s (“Plaintiff”), by and through the undersigned counsel, pursuant to Rid. R. Civ. P. 12(b), respectfully moves the court to grant judgment on the pleadings to the plaintiff because there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the plaintiff is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Dated: August 1, 2026 /s/ Nicklaus_s Nicklaus_s (Rid. Bar No. 10241) Managing Partner NICKLAUS & ASSOCIATES LLC 1 Jackson Road Palmer, Ridgeway 90025 (123) 456-7890 [email protected] Attorney for Plaintiff TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF FACTS............................................................................................... 1 A. Statutory Background...........................................................................................1 B. Factual Background.............................................................................................. 1 C. Procedural Background.........................................................................................2 STANDARD OF REVIEW.............................................................................................. 2 ARGUMENT....................................................................................................................3 I. S.B. 21 is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment................................. 3 A. S.B. 21 regulates conduct covered by the plain text...................................... 4 B. S.B. 21 is inconsistent with the historical tradition of firearm regulation...6 II. S.B. 21 is unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause.............................. 12 A. S.B. 21 deprives a protected liberty interest................................................ 12 B. S.B. 21 provides no procedural protections.................................................. 14 CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................. 15 STATEMENT OF FACTS A. Statutory Background The State of Ridgeway requires a person to obtain a license before he or she may possess any firearm. 9 R. Stat. § 412.001. An ordinary firearms license permits only the “ownership or usage of” “civilian-grade firearms,” which are firearms “not capable of fully automatic fire” and which utilize “magazines with a maximum bullet capacity of 15 bullets.” 9 R. Stat. §§ 412.002–03. An advanced firearm license permits a licensee to “own or utilize” “advanced-grade firearms,” which are firearms “capable of fully automatic fire” or which utilize “magazines with a capacity of more than 15 bullets.” 9 R. Stat. §§ 411.009, 413.001. Advanced firearm licenses expire automatically after one year and require renewal. 9 R. Stat. § 413.106. The Colonel of the Ridgeway State Police is responsible for “issuing advanced firearm licenses” and “maintain[ing] a database” of licensees. 9 R. Stat. §§ 413.101, 413.103. The Colonel may deny and temporarily or permanently revoke a license “for any reason,” but the minimum eligibility requirements for obtaining an advanced firearms license are the “active possession” of an ordinary firearms license and “no previous arrests or citations” on record. 9 R. Stat. §§ 413.102, 413.104–05. B. Factual Background To own and utilize a Stetson M1-A and a Stetson Cardiac-5, a person must first possess an advanced firearms license. Complaint ¶ 38; Answer ¶ 38 (admitted). Plaintiff sought and continues to seek to possess those firearms for lawful purposes. Complaint ¶¶ 33, 54; Answer ¶¶ 33, 54 (insufficient knowledge). So, on June 21, 1 2026, Plaintiff applied for an advanced firearms license. Complaint ¶ 48; Answer ¶ 48 (admitted). Plaintiff satisfied all of the minimum eligibility requirements for a license under state law, except that he had previously been arrested and cited. Complaint ¶¶ 41–44, 49; Answer ¶ 41–44, 49 (admitted). That arrest and those citations did not result in convictions or prosecutions, and all of which were for violations of the state vehicle code. Complaint ¶¶ 41–44, 46–47; Answer ¶¶ 41–44, 46–47 (admitted). Soon after submitting his application, Plaintiff was messaged that his application was denied because he had a criminal record. Complaint ¶ 50; Answer ¶ 50 (admitted). That message did not identify any specific arrest or citation, or statutory provision, which formed the basis for denial. Complaint ¶¶ 50–51; Answer ¶¶ 50–51 (admitted). C. Procedural Background On July 24, 2026, Plaintiff then filed this suit against the Colonel of the Ridgeway State Police, alleging two causes of action under state law for deprivation of rights, specifically of the Second Amendment and Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. STANDARD OF REVIEW Rule 12 of the Ridgeway Rules of Civil Procedure provides “after the pleadings are closed but within such time as not to delay the trial, any party may move for judgment on the pleadings.” Rid. R. Civ. P. 12(b). Judgment on the pleadings must be granted when, accepting all facts pleaded by the nonmovant as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmovant, no material issue of fact remains and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Put 2 another way, judgment on the pleadings is proper “where the material facts are not in dispute and a judgment on the merits can be rendered by looking to the substance of the pleadings and any judicially noticed facts,” like in a litigation “where all material allegations of fact are admitted…and only questions of law remain,” such as “the applicability or interpretation of a statutory provision.” Hebert Abstract Co. v. Touchstone Properties, Ltd., 914 F.2d 74, 76 (5th Cir. 1990). ARGUMENT I. S.B. 21 is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” U.S. Const. amend. II. In determining whether this command has been violated, the threshold question is “whether the restrictions imposed by the challenged law fall within the plain text of the Second Amendment.” Wolford v. Lopez, 609 U.S. __, slip op. at 13 (2026). Relevant to this inquiry are three questions: first, whether the law applies to “the people,” meaning “all members of the political community”; second, whether the law concerns “arms,” meaning “any weapon customarily used for offensive or defensive purposes”; and third, whether the law restricts the ability to “keep” and “bear” arms. Id. at 7. The government may not attempt an end run around this inquiry by “smuggl[ing] additional limits, drawn from [historical] tradition, into the plain-text stage.” Id. at 2 (Barret, J., concurring); id. at 16 (majority opinion) (“Historical materials and precedents…are out of place at Bruen’s first step.”); id. at 13 (Jackson, J., dissenting) (observing that the majority “announces that, at step 3 one, courts must look only to the ‘plain text’ of the Second Amendment devoid of any historical understanding.”). If the answer to all three questions is yes, “the challenged law falls within the plain text” and “is presumptively unconstitutional.” Wolford, slip op. at 7. The burden is then on the government to show that the challenged law does “not infringe the historical understanding of the codified right” by identifying one or more “historical analogues” which were widely adopted, well accepted, and relevantly similar to the modern law. Id. at 7–8. An analogue is “relevantly similar” to a modern law when the “how” and “why” are close enough for the court to “infer that the restriction imposed by the modern law” is consistent with the right to keep and bear arms simply because the historical law was also understood to be. Id. A. S.B. 21 regulates conduct covered by the plain text. 1. The threshold textual inquiry here is simple, as it will be in most cases. S.B. 21 applies in relevant part to every member of the general public, see 9 R. Stat. § 413.401, and thus to “the people” that the Second Amendment protects. S.B. 21 also applies to “any firearms that are capable of fully automatic fire or are high capacity,” see 9 R. Stat. § 413.001, and thus to “arms” within the meaning of the Second Amendment. And S.B. 21 plainly restricts the ability to “keep” and “bear” those arms by preventing any person from “own[ing] or utiliz[ing]” them without an advanced firearms license. Id. 2. The government does not meaningfully dispute any of this. However, after devoting several pages as to whether S.B. 21 is consistent with historical tradition, see Def.’s Mot. at 4–6, the government finally argues as an afterthought that the 4 court need not even go that far: because “high-capacity magazines” are mere “accessories” or “components” of firearms, they are not “arms” under the Second Amendment. Id. at 6–7. There are too many problems with that logic to count. A. To start, this argument mischaracterizes what S.B. 21 regulates. The relevant statute concerns “any firearms” which are fully automatic or use certain magazines, not magazines standing alone. 9 R. Stat. §§ 413.001 (emphasis added). There can be no serious doubt that firearms are “arms” under the Second Amendment. See District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 582 (2008) (“The Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.”); see, e.g., Caetano v. Massachusetts, 577 U.S. 411 (2016) (per curiam) (stun guns). So, the firearms regulated by S.B. 21 “are protected by Bruen” and the court is indeed “required to embark a historical exposition,” Def.’s Mot. at 7, to determine whether S.B. 21 is consistent with the historical tradition of arms regulation throughout the nation. B. That alone should put this argument to bed. But even putting the literal scope of S.B. 21 aside, the government is wrong in suggesting that magazines, as mere accessories or components of firearms, “do not fall into [the] narrow definition” of “arms.” Def.’s Mot. at 7. Again, the definition of “arms” is not narrow: it covers “all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.” Heller, 554 U.S. at 582. A magazine which enables a firearm to fire as intended plainly fits that definition. “Holding otherwise 5 would allow the government to sidestep the Second Amendment with a regulation prohibiting possession at the component level.” Hanson v. District of Columbia, 120 F.4th 223, 232 (D.C. Cir. 2024). C. Still, that all is beside the point. The government agrees that the firearms relevant to this case are regulated by S.B. 21 not only because they use high-capacity magazines, but also because they are fully automatic firearms. See Complaint ¶¶ 36–37; Answer ¶¶ 36–37 (admitted). And whatever the analysis for magazines standing alone, the government never disputes that fully automatic firearms are “arms” under the Second Amendment. See Def.’s Mot. at 4–7. That is wise. Automatic firearms, like their semiautomatic counterparts, “fall squarely within” the category of “instruments that constitute bearable arms” as “weapons of offense,” so they “are clearly ‘arms’ under the Second Amendment’s plain text.” Snope v. Brown, 605 U.S. __, slip op. at 2 (2025) (Thomas, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari). Indeed, it does not matter at step one “whether the object in question is a handgun or a machine gun,” even if some historical tradition will justify some regulation on them, because machine guns “fall within the original semantic meaning” of the amendment as “weapons of offense.” Joel Alicea, Bruen Was Right, 174 U. PA. L. REV. 13, 29 (2025). B. S.B. 21 is inconsistent with the historical tradition of firearm regulation. The dispositive question, then, is whether the categorical bar imposed on those with arrests or citations from ever obtaining a license—without so much as a hearing—and thus from keeping and bearing an entire class of arms, is “consistent 6 with” the “historical tradition of firearm regulation” throughout the “nation.” Bruen, 597 U.S. at 24. It is not. 1. To make such a showing, the government has a steep hill to climb. As jurists and commentators have repeatedly recognized, the government did not even historically strip all convicted felons from possessing a firearm. As Justice Barrett has explained, “scholars have not been able to identify” any “founding-era laws” showing “a legislative power to permanently dispossess all felons.” Kanter v. Barr, 919 F.3d 437, 454 (7th Cir. 2019) (Barrett, J., dissenting), abrogated by Bruen, 597 U.S. 1. Put simply, “history does not support the proposition that felons lose their Second Amendment rights solely because of their status as felons.” Id. at 464. This makes sense. At the founding, the common concern was not possession by “criminals in general,” but rather possession by those who “threatened violence and the risk of public injury.” Id. at 456. As Justice Barrett summarized: legislatures at the founding “categorically disarmed groups whom they judged to be a threat to public safety,” but “historical practice” does not show “a legislative power to categorically disarm felons because of their status.” Id. at 458. Other judges have reached the same unsurprising conclusion. See, e.g., United States v. Jackson, 85 F.4th 468, 472 (8th Cir. 2023) (Stras, J., dissenting from denial of reh’g en banc) (“The decades surrounding the ratification of the Second Amendment showed a steady and consistent practice. People considered dangerous lost their arms. But being a criminal had little to do with it.”); Folajtar v. Att’y Gen. of the United States, 980 F.3d 897, 914–15 (3d Cir. 2020) (Bibas, J., dissenting) (“We must analyze the 7 history ourselves and ask: Were all felons, dangerous and nondangerous alike, equally excluded from the Second Amendment? No, they were not.”); Range v. Att’y Gen. of the United States, 124 F.4th 218, 249 (2024) (Phipps, J., concurring) (“A legislative restriction on the right to keep and bear arms based on nothing more than a prior conviction is without relevant historical antecedent.”).1 Suffice it to say then that the steep hill here becomes a mountain. This case does not involve the categorical disarmament of convicted felons, but the categorical disarmament of people with only arrests and citations. As relevant here, the bar operates to prevent the plaintiff from possessing certain firearms based solely on his arrest for speeding, and citations for driving without headlights, driving wrong way, and speeding. It applies even though those records did not result in a prosecution, much less a conviction, even though the plaintiff has never been found—and his records do not suggest him—to be dangerous or violent, and even though the plaintiff has never been afforded any process. That is as remarkable as it is ahistorical. 2. To justify the regulation at hand, the government points to three purported historical analogues: the 1328 Statute of Northampton, founding-era laws 1 See also Range, 124 F.4th at 246 (Matey, J., concurring) (“We have wandered far from the reason and spirit of the Second Amendment. The first federal ban on felons possessing firearms…prohibited any individual convicted of a crime of violence to possess a firearm or ammunition.…Disarming individuals who exhibited that conduct made sense because they engaged in conduct that harmed the physical safety of individuals in the community. But twenty-three years later, Congress swept in all felonies, not just crimes of violence, thus abandoning reason.”); and contrast Comprehensive Firearms Act § 5.2, S.B. 6-21, 6th Sen., Gen. Sess. (2024) (“The eligibility requirements for obtaining an AFL shall…at minimum…require…no violent or firearm related felonies on record.”) with Firearm Licenses Act of 2026 § 6.2, S.B. 11-21, 11th Sen., Gen. Sess. (2026) (“The eligibility requirements for obtaining an AFL shall be…no previous arrests or citations on an applying person’s record.”) 8 disarming “disaffected” persons, and Connecticut’s modern “suitable person” permitting standard. None carry the burden through, because none are “relevantly similar” to § 413.102(b). A. Statute of Northampton. The 1328 Statute of Northampton demanded “bring[ing] no force in affray of the peace” and forbid “rid[ing] armed by night nor by day” or “com[ing] before the King’s Ministers doing their office, with force and arms.” 2 Edw. 3, 320, ch. 3 (1328). Punishment for such conduct included “forfeit[ing] their Armour to the King” as well as being imprisoned. Id. Centuries of construction simply do not support the weight the government puts on the statute. Bruen itself canvassed it and held that the statute reached only carrying “in an angry, violent, unusual, or alarming manner, to the terror of the people.” Bruen, 597 U.S. at 40–47. S.B. 21 prevents even just the possession of certain arms. And the Statute of Northampton dealt with a discrete public act, not a categorical bar. Section 413.102(b) addresses a different concern entirely. The government frames its purpose as generalized screening, untethered to any showing that an applicant has ever gone armed, let alone gone armed to terrorize anyone. It categorically deals with arrests and citations that do not, as here, involve a weapon, an affray, or any conduct within a country mile of what the Statute of Northampton punished. B. Founding-era loyalty laws. The government next points to several laws during the colonial period, paramount because “constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them.” Bruen, 9 597 U.S. at 34. First, to a 1777 New Jersey law empowering the Council of Safety “to deprive and take from such Persons as they shall judge disaffected and dangerous to the present Government, all the Arms, Accoutrements, and Ammunition which they own or possess.” 1777 N.J. Laws 90, ch. 40 § 20. Next, to a 1777 Virginia law which directed the “county lieutenant, or chief commanding officer of the militia” in each county to identify “recusants”—persons who refused to swear the oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth—and “cause such recusants to be disarmed.” 9 William Waller Hening, The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of all the Laws of Virginia 282 (1821). Finally, to a 1779 Pennsylvania law acknowledging that “it is very improper and dangerous that persons disaffected to the liberty and independence of this state shall possess or have in their own keeping, or elsewhere, any fire arms,” and thus empowered officers of the state “to disarm any person or persons who shall not have taken any oath or affirmation of allegiance to this or any other state.” 1779 Pa. Laws ch. 101 §§ 4–5. In short, the government points to “disarmament efforts during the colonial period” which “targeted disaffected persons,” because those legislatures believed that they may “rebel against” the colonists. Joseph G.S. Greenlee, The Historical Justification for Prohibiting Dangerous Persons from Possessing Arms, 20 WYO. L. REV. 249, 265 (2020). Those laws do nothing to help the government here, however, because none of them match § 413.102(b) in the why or how. As to the why, all three laws addressed a single, narrow concern: it was “very improper and dangerous that persons disaffected to the liberty and independence” 10 of the nation “shall possess…any fire arms.” 1779 Pa. Laws ch. 101 §§ 4–5. This made sense: “To deal with the potential threat coming from armed citizens who remained loyal to Great Britain, states took the obvious precaution of disarming these persons.” Saul Cornell & Nathan DeDino, A Well Regulated Right: The Early American Origins of Gun Control, 73 FORDHAM L. REV. 487, 506 (2004). Section 413.102(b) shares none of this concern. It categorically disqualifies applicants over non-violent traffic citations that speak to nothing about political allegiance, willingness to bear arms against the state, or refusal of any oath. As to the how, all three statutes operated through an individualized determination about a specific person. Tellingly, the New Jersey law required the disarmament only of those that the Council “shall judge disaffected and dangerous to the present Government.” 1777 N.J. Laws 90, ch. 40 § 20. And the “particular threat dissipated when a person pledged his allegiance to the United States or to a particular state,” Kanter, 919 F.3d at 458 (Barrett, J., dissenting), so “alleged loyalists” were ordinarily given “the chance to demonstrate they were not dangerous.” United States v. Williams, 113 F.4th 637 (6th Cir. 2024). This is important here because a law may regulate conduct “for a permissible reason,” but at the same time “not be compatible with the right” to keep and bear arms because “it does so to an extent beyond what was done at the founding.” United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680, 692 (2024). C. Connecticut’s “suitable person” standard. The government finally points to a modern-day firearm law in Connecticut which gives officials discretion to 11 deny a carry permit to anyone who is not a “suitable person.” Conn. Gen. Stat. § 29–28(b). Despite the government suggesting that this is the “strongest and most relevant historical evidence,” Def.’s Mot. at 6, it undoubtedly is not. “A lone statute” necessarily “neither widespread nor widely accepted,” and “adopted nearly a century after the adoption of the Second Amendment and well after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment,” “carries no weight” because it “sheds little if any light on the meaning of the Second Amendment right.” Wolford, slip op. at 23. II. S.B. 21 is unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that “no state shall…deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” U.S. Const. amend. XIV. A. S.B. 21 deprives a protected liberty interest. “The first inquiry in every due process challenge is whether the plaintiff has been deprived of a protected interest,” and “only after finding the deprivation of a protected interest” does the court “look to see” if the underlying “procedures comport with due process.” Am. Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S. 40, 59 (1999). 1. Missing the forest for the trees, the government makes much of the fact that the plaintiff lacks a property interest in an advanced firearms license. See Def.’s Mot. at 2. True, because “state law gives the issuing authority broad discretion to grant or deny license applications,”2 the plaintiff does “not have a 2 Ironically, this argument cuts both ways. It may help the government establish the absence of a property interest—which no one disputes—but Bruen deemed the “appraisal of facts, the exercise of judgment, and the formation of an opinion” by permitting authorities the hallmarks of an unconstitutional permitting regime. Bruen, 597 U.S. at 39 (emphasis added); id. at 14 (describing “may-issue” schemes as those “which authorities have discretion to deny concealed-carry licenses 12 property right in such licenses protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.” Erdelyi v. O’Brien, 680 F.2d 61, 63 (9th Cir. 1982). But the plaintiff has never claimed such an interest. Instead, he claims “a liberty interest in the fundamental right to keep and carry lawful firearms,” including “automatic and high-capacity firearms as defined by S.B. 21.” Complaint ¶ 70. And because the plaintiff must possess an advanced firearms license to own and utilize those firearms, see Complaint ¶ 38; Answer ¶ 38 (admitted), the defendant deprived him of his liberty interest by denying his application, see Complaint ¶ 76. 2. The government cannot seriously dispute that the plaintiff has such a liberty interest. The Due Process Clause “provides heightened protection against government interference with certain fundamental rights and liberty interests,” which include “the specific freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights.” Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 720 (1997). Obviously, the Second Amendment is included in the Bill of Rights. So, the Supreme Court has made clear on several occasions that an individual possesses a liberty interest in the right to keep and bear arms. See Heller, 554 U.S. 570; McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010) (“Heller makes it clear that this right is ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.’ (quoting Glucksburg, 521 U.S. at 721)); see also United States v. Rehlander, 666 F.3d 45, 48 (1st Cir. 2012) (“The right to possess arms…is no longer something that can be withdrawn by government on a permanent and irrevocable basis without due process.” (citing Heller, 554 U.S. 570)); Doe I v. Evanchick, 355 F. Supp. 3d 197, 217 even when the applicant satisfies the statutory criteria”); id. at 79 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring) (“The Court correctly holds that…“may-issue” licensing regime[s]…violate[] the Second Amendment.”). 13 (E.D. Pa. 2019) (“From Heller and McDonald, it is clear that the right to bear arms is a protected liberty interest.”). B. S.B. 21 provides no procedural protections. “Once it is determined that the Due Process Clause applies, the question remains what process is due.” Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 541 (1985). “An essential principle of due process is that a deprivation of life, liberty, or property be preceded by notice and opportunity for hearing appropriate to the nature of the case.” Id. at 542. “Due process is flexible and calls for such procedural protections as the particular situation demands.” Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 334 (1976). The interest at stake here is phenomenal: a fundamental constitutional right. And the risk of erroneous deprivation is likewise phenomenal. Simply put, there are no procedural protections available. Defendant did not identify which specific arrest or citation, much less a statutory provision, that formed the basis for denying the application. Complaint ¶ 51; Answer ¶ 51 (admitted). Defendant likewise did not afford Plaintiff notice of any process or appeal by which to contest the denial. Complaint ¶ 52; Answer ¶ 52 (denied, but see Complaint ¶¶ 50–51, admitting the substance of the denial notice itself, which contained no such information). And Defendant did not provide any opportunity—before or after the denial—for Plaintiff to be heard. Complaint ¶ 53; Answer ¶ 53 (denied on the same terms). And the competing interest in implementing at least some procedural protections is minimal: Defendant already implements an appeal system for the revocation of advanced firearm licenses. See 9 R. Stat. § 413.104. The absence of process is 14 compounded by the boundless discretion S.B. 21 vests in Defendant, allowing him to deprive anyone of a fundamental constitutional right at his whim. CONCLUSION For the foregoing reasons, the court should grant judgment on the pleadings to the plaintiff, and deny judgment on the pleadings to the defendant. Dated: August 1, 2026 /s/ Nicklaus_s Nicklaus_s (Rid. Bar No. 10241) Managing Partner NICKLAUS & ASSOCIATES LLC 1 Jackson Road Palmer, Ridgeway 90025 (123) 456-7890 [email protected] Attorney for Plaintiff 15

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