A federal appeals court judge posted a firearms demonstration video to YouTube on Thursday, accusing his colleagues of living in a “factual fantasy” over gun restrictions, in an extraordinary rebuke of their decision in a gun case.
Judge Lawrence VanDyke of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals published the unusual video dissent Thursday after the court reaffirmed California‘s ban on magazines holding more than 10 rounds. The 7-4 majority held that large-capacity magazines are not protected under the Second Amendment, asserting the ban aligns with the nation’s historical tradition of regulating dangerous weapon components.
“It is so easy to demonstrate the conceptual failings of the majority’s new test that even a caveman with just a video recorder and a firearm could do it,” wrote VanDyke, a Trump appointee.
VanDyke’s self-recorded video, filmed in his chambers, features the judge using his personal firearm equipment to challenge the majority’s reasoning directly. He argued that his colleagues had invented an impractical constitutional standard detached from the reality of firearm use.
“Many judges (and gunbanning governments) know next to nothing about how guns actually work,” VanDyke wrote. “This perhaps explains why they would invent such an obviously inadministrable test for guns but never for any other constitutional right.”
VanDyke argued that the Ninth Circuit majority imposed an unrealistic “Platonic ideal” test, inaccurately assuming guns can function normally without magazines exceeding ten rounds. In his video, he demonstrated that limiting magazine size severely impairs self-defense capabilities by forcing frequent reloads, thus undermining the firearm’s practical use.
“The majority’s assumption that the need to reload in a self-defense situation ‘almost never’ happens in real life may not be as justified as it thinks, though, and becomes even less so in a modern society increasingly plagued by unchecked group violence,” VanDyke wrote, pointing to a 2021 case where an off-duty police officer was attacked by an armed assailant and led to the officer firing more than ten rounds.
The majority, meanwhile, ruled that a more recent Supreme Court gun decision justified certain restrictions on the Second Amendment, pointing to the United States v. Rahimi case in which the majority ruled to uphold a federal law barring domestic violence offenders from possessing firearms.
“Although its meaning is fixed according to the understandings of those who ratified it, the Constitution can, and must, apply to circumstances beyond those the Founders specifically anticipated,” the majority held.
His unconventional video dissent did not go unnoticed or uncriticized. Clinton-appointed Judge Marsha Berzon strongly objected to VanDyke’s video presentation, calling it “wildly improper,” according to court records.
“Judge VanDyke has, in essence, appointed himself as an expert witness,” Berzon wrote, noting the absence of procedural safeguards typically required for expert testimony.
VanDyke shot back, asserting that his video merely “unmasks” the majority’s flawed logic. “Don’t shoot the messenger simply for showing that this reality doesn’t exist,” he responded.
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The ruling came after the Supreme Court instructed the Ninth Circuit to revisit its decision in light of a pivotal 2022 ruling that emphasized firearm regulations must reflect historical norms, a precedent established in New York Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen.
VanDyke was previously included on Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees in 2020.
