A federal judge in Kansas has tossed out a machine gun possession charge and questioned if bans on the weapons violate the Second Amendment.

If upheld on appeal, the ruling by U.S. District Judge John W. Broomes in Wichita could have a sweeping impact on the regulation of machine guns, including homemade automatic weapons that many police and prosecutors blame for fueling gun violence.

Broomes, an appointee of President Donald Trump, on Wednesday dismissed two machine gun possession counts against Tamori Morgan, who was indicted last year. Morgan was accused of possessing a model AM-15 .300-caliber machine gun and a machine gun conversion device known as a “Glock switch” that can make a semi-automatic weapon fire like a machine gun.

“The court finds that the Second Amendment applies to the weapons charged because they are ‘bearable arms’ within the original meaning of the amendment,” Broomes wrote. He added that the government “has the burden to show that the regulation is consistent with this nation’s historical firearm regulation tradition.”

As of Friday, no appeal had been filed. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Wichita declined comment.

Federal prosecutors in the case said in earlier court filings that the “Supreme Court has made clear that regulations of machineguns fall outside the Second Amendment.”

A June 2022 Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen was seen as a major expansion of gun rights. The ruling said Americans have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense.

Jacob Charles, an associate law professor at Pepperdine University who tracks Second Amendment cases, said the Kansas ruling is direct fallout from the Bruen decision.

“It gives lower court judges the ability to pick and choose the historical record in a way that they think the Second Amendment should be read,” Charles said.

Charles expects Broomes’ ruling to be overturned, citing Supreme Court precedent allowing for regulation of machine guns.

Communities across the U.S. have dealt with a surge of shootings carried out with weapons converted to fully automatic in recent years. These weapons are typically converted using small pieces of metal made with a 3D printer or ordered online.

Guns with conversion devices have been used in several mass shootings, including one that left four dead at a Sweet Sixteen party in Alabama last year and another that left six people dead in a bar district in Sacramento, California, in 2022. In Houston, police officer William Jeffrey died in 2021 after being shot with a converted gun while serving a warrant.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reported a 570% increase in the number of conversion devices collected by police departments between 2017 and 2021, the most recent data available, The Associated Press reported in March.

ATWOOD, Kan. (WIBW) – A man was killed Thursday night in a one-car crash in Rawlins County in northwest Kansas, authorities said.

The crash was reported at 8:34 p.m. Thursday just west of K-25 highway on Atwood Cemetery Road. the location was just west of the city of Atwood.

According to the Kansas Highway Patrol’s online crash log, a 1997 Ford passenger car was traveling east on Atwood Cemetery Road when for an unknown reason, it left the roadway to the right — or south — side, striking a concrete bridge pillar. The car then spun 90 degrees in a counter-clockwise direction and came to rest in the ditch facing north.

The driver, identified as Mitchell C. Howard, 20, of Bird City, was pronounced dead at the scene. The patrol said Howard was wearing his seat belt.

The patrol said Howard was alone in the car.

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TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) – Kansas legislators want to change the way the state comes up with its budget.

A Special Committee on Budget Process and Development met on Thursday. Members of the House and Senate, including Senate President Ty Masterson and House Speaker Dan Hawkins, discussed how they would want to go about making the budget in the Legislature.

“I look at this as an opportunity to examine a process that is probably flawed and find opportunities to make it better. We need to spend more time diving into the budget process and figure out how to do it more effectively and efficiently. I’m very excited to find solutions that can help us better serve all Kansas taxpayers and look forward to our next meeting as a committee.”

A lack of sufficient review time was cited as the biggest factor motivating any changes.

“What we’re going to be looking at is possible systemic changes to how we actually craft a budget by the State Legislature and moving forward in an earlier fashion than what we have done in previous years or maybe even for decades,” Committee Chairman Rep. Troy Waymaster said during the meeting. “We are compressed by a very aggressive schedule and trying to analyze the, I believe, 78 budgets that we have with the state agencies and the Departments and trying to get that done within a course of five to six weeks.”

The budget is currently developed by the governor and state agencies, and then submitted to the Legislature. There’s a series of deadlines and hearings legislators can access throughout October and November, but they don’t truly see a draft until that submission in January.

“We’re going to be looking at what other states are doing in regards to the process as being created by the Legislature,” Rep. Waymaster continued. “This is not to say that we’re not going to adhere to what the governor may propose, what this does is it ask it lets us escalate the process in a quicker fashion so when we return in the beginning of January we can start the budget analysis on those smaller budgets.”

Rep. Waymaster released a statement after the meeting stating a bill would be introduced when the legislature returns in January 2025.

“The current budget process that we have in place has been utilized for decades and its time to look at a new way of generating our state budget. We took great strides today in identifying a budget process that better serves the taxpayers of the state of Kansas. As appropriators of the state finances, the legislature is going to introduce a budget bill in the onset of the legislative session in January of 2025, and begin the analytical process of how we can reduce spending and have a more concise budget process.”

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