CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Judge rules federal law banning guns with serial numbers removed is unconstitutional. “A federal judge blocked a federal law on Wednesday that prohibits the possession of a firearm with an “altered, obliterated or removed” serial number in light of the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling expanding gun rights earlier this year. U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin ruled that no historical standard exists to demonstrate that firearms without a serial number are more dangerous or unusual than firearms with a serial number, so the law is unconstitutional.”