The United States Courthouse in Gualo Rai, Saipan.
DEPARTMENT of Public Safety Commissioner Anthony I. Macaranas, through Chief Solicitor J. Robert Glass Jr., has asked the federal court to dismiss the refiled complaint of Army veteran Paul Murphy regarding the CNMI’s gun silencer ban.
In a motion to dismiss filed on Tuesday, Glass said Murphy “failed to properly serve Defendant and fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.”
Murphy, filing pro se or for himself, named Macaranas as defendant and asked the District Court for the NMI to issue a declaratory judgment finding 6 CMC §2222(a) and Public Law 19-42 §208(a)(2) unconstitutional on their face because they violate the Second and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution.
Murphy also asked the court to issue a permanent injunction enjoining the DPS commissioner from enforcing the ban on silencers, sound suppressors, or sound moderators.
“A declaration from this court would settle these issues. A declaration would also serve a useful purpose in clarifying legal issues in dispute,” Murphy added.
He is suing Macaranas for the violation of Murphy’s right to keep and bear arms.
But according to Glass, the statute being challenged by Murphy was repealed by the Legislature in Public Law 19-73 § 3 in 2016.
“The specific statute being challenged, 6 CMC § 2222(a), no longer exists,” he added.
Glass asked the court to dismiss the complaint with prejudice, “because even if Plaintiff were correct and the ban on sound suppressors, moderators and silencers in 6 CMC § 2222(a) is unconstitutional, the court could not grant the relief requested in declaring a repealed statute unconstitutional.”
Moreover, Glass said, “the repealed statute also could not be enforced [and] nothing within the complaint or the documents attached to the complaint reference 6 CMC § 2222(a) as any basis for the denial of plaintiff’s request for a silencer. Thus, because the statute has been repealed, the relief requested cannot be granted and plaintiff has failed to state a claim.”
According to Murphy’s lawsuit, he has been denied the right to purchase, own, and/or possess a pistol, silencer, sound suppressor or sound moderator.
In his lawsuit he stated that on Aug. 9, 2023, former Commissioner of DPS Clement Bermudes sent him a document via email, denying his request to possess a Maxim Defense PDX-SD pistol chambered in 5.56 NATO, equipped with a built-in “soup can” suppressor.
“On June 24, 2024, Commissioner of DPS Anthony I. Macaranas sent me documents denying my request for possession of a Banish 30 suppressor and denying my request for possession of Ruger MKIV-SD Integral Suppressor 22 caliber pistol,” Murphy said.
Pursuant to the Covenant to establish a Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in political union with the United States of America, the Second and the 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution are applicable to the CNMI, he added.
“In previous litigation this court found that provisions which banned these instruments to include a flash suppressor were unconstitutional,” Murphy said.
“With over three million silencers, suppressors, and sound moderators owned by Americans this is in common use for lawful purposes. The total ban on this class of arms should fail constitutional muster,” he added.
According to Murphy, the challenged provisions carry “felony criminal penalties for violations including fines and incarcerations of up to $25,000 and ten years in prison.”
In September 2024, Murphy filed a similar lawsuit but withdrew it after the CNMI government asked the court to dismiss the complaint.
In 2016, Murphy won his lawsuit against DPS, which he sued to stop the enforcement of the Commonwealth Weapons Act and the Special Act for Firearms and Enforcement or SAFE.
In 2020, Murphy filed another complaint against DPS for enforcing gun law provisions found unconstitutional.
In his recently refiled complaint, Murphy is again challenging the CNMI’s Weapons Control Act and the CNMI’s SAFE Act.
Under 6 CMC § 2222(a), “It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly manufacture, import, sell, ship, deliver, possess, transfer, or receive a firearm silencer, except as authorized by law.”
Under CNMI P.L. 19-42 § 208(a)(2), “No person shall possess: A silencer, sound suppressor or sound moderator.”
