3. Analysis: Legal Reasoning and Precedents Cited
A. Preservation and the Threshold for Appellate Relief
Several important claims—including the constitutional challenges and double-jeopardy objection—were raised for the first time on appeal. This procedural posture significantly shaped the decision. An appellate court may consider an unpreserved constitutional claim, but constitutional importance does not eliminate the defendant’s obligation to establish plain error.
Martinorellan v. State, 131 Nev. 43, 343 P.3d 590 (2015), supplied the governing rule: all unpreserved errors receive plain-error review, including errors of constitutional dimension. That precedent prevented Armstrong from obtaining ordinary appellate review merely by labeling an objection constitutional.
Vega v. State, 126 Nev. 332, 236 P.3d 632 (2010), explained the required clarity of the error: it must be unmistakable and apparent from a casual inspection of the record. An unsettled constitutional argument therefore faces a substantial obstacle when first presented on appeal.
Jeremias v. State, 134 Nev. 46, 412 P.3d 43 (2018), added the prejudice requirement. Armstrong had to demonstrate actual prejudice or a miscarriage of justice affecting his substantial rights. The court emphasized that even structural constitutional error does not automatically establish this requirement on an unpreserved claim.
McCullough v. State, 99 Nev. 72, 657 P.2d 1157 (1983), confirmed the court’s authority to address constitutional questions first raised on appeal. Its role was jurisdictional and procedural: failure to object did not absolutely foreclose consideration of the double-jeopardy issue.
The opinion distinguishes the plain-error gateway from de novo review of constitutional law. Although statutory constitutionality presents a legal question ordinarily examined independently, Armstrong first had to show a sufficiently clear constitutional defect to justify relief on an unpreserved claim. He failed on the firearm-rights challenges but succeeded on double jeopardy.
B. The Second Amendment: An Auto-Sear Converts the Relevant Weapon into a Machine Gun
The federal constitutional analysis begins with classification. NRS 202.253(6) defines a machine gun as a weapon that shoots, is designed to shoot, or can readily be restored to shoot more than one shot, without manual reloading, through a single function of the trigger. The auto-sear-equipped Glock fell within that definition.
The court acknowledged that a Glock, an auto-sear, and their combination qualify as “arms” for purposes of the constitutional discussion. It did not reason that the modified weapon ceased to be an arm altogether. Rather, it concluded that the resulting machine gun belonged to the dangerous-and-unusual category outside the protected class of weapons traditionally possessed for lawful purposes.
Precedents establishing the constitutional framework
New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), was the principal authority invoked by Armstrong. It requires attention to constitutional text and historical firearm regulation rather than ordinary interest balancing. The court relied both on its protection of armed self-defense and its recognition of the historical tradition concerning dangerous and unusual weapons.
Cocking v. State, 141 Nev., Adv. Op. 21, 567 P.3d 348 (2025), supplied Nevada’s formulation of that framework: determine whether the regulated conduct falls within the Second Amendment’s plain text and, if it does, whether the regulation accords with America’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. This precedent connected the federal methodology to Nevada’s existing constitutional jurisprudence.
United States v. Henry, 688 F.3d 637 (9th Cir. 2012), provided direct persuasive support for excluding machine guns from Second Amendment protection. It characterized machine guns as highly dangerous and unusual weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes. Although it predates New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen, the Nevada court treated that classification as consistent with the newer historical framework.
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), reinforced the same conclusion through its observation that recognizing constitutional protection for machine guns would be “startling.” That observation supported the court’s classification; it should not be confused with a separate Supreme Court adjudication of every possible machine-gun restriction.
Precedents distinguishing automatic conversion from accelerated semiautomatic fire
United States v. Bridges, 150 F.4th 517 (6th Cir. 2025), and United States v. Maluoth, 121 F.4th 1158 (8th Cir. 2024), supported the proposition that an auto-sear-equipped semiautomatic firearm constitutes a machine gun under federal law. Importantly, the cited discussion in United States v. Bridges came from Judge Nalbandian’s concurrence, not an undifferentiated majority holding. These authorities assisted statutory classification rather than independently resolving Nevada’s constitutional questions.
Garland v. Cargill, 602 U.S. 406 (2024), supplied the critical distinction between an auto-sear and a bump stock. A bump stock facilitates repeated firing while the trigger continues to operate separately for each shot. An auto-sear permits multiple shots following a single trigger engagement. The Supreme Court’s interpretation of the federal machine-gun statute therefore did not protect Armstrong’s device from classification as a machine gun.
The Nevada court expressly recognized the limited scope of Garland v. Cargill: it concerned statutory interpretation, not the constitutionality of bump-stock restrictions. The present opinion likewise does not decide whether Nevada may constitutionally prohibit bump stocks.
The cited American Law Reports discussion concerning conversion components was secondary authority, not a judicial precedent. Its supporting role should be distinguished from the decisions establishing constitutional doctrine.
Scope of the holding
The operative constitutional conclusion concerns the firearm in its converted configuration. It does not diminish the protection ordinarily afforded to a semiautomatic handgun merely because that handgun can be modified. Nor does it establish that an increased firing rate alone makes every firearm a constitutionally unprotected machine gun.
There is also a terminology inconsistency worth noting: Armstrong’s challenge is introduced as “as applied,” while the opinion later refers to a “facial” challenge. The safest reading centers on the actual controversy—the prohibition of Armstrong’s auto-sear-equipped Glock—while recognizing the court’s broader rejection of constitutional protection for machine guns.
C. The Nevada Constitution Does Not Independently Protect Automatic Firearms
Article 1, Section 11(1) of the Nevada Constitution protects keeping and bearing arms for security and defense, lawful hunting, recreational use, and other lawful purposes. Armstrong argued that the express inclusion of recreation and other lawful uses made Nevada’s guarantee broader than the federal Second Amendment.
The court did not deny that state constitutions can provide independent protection. Instead, it concluded that Nevada’s text, history, and legislative context did not demonstrate protection for machine guns.
Interpretive precedents
Pohlabel v. State, 128 Nev. 1, 268 P.3d 1264 (2012), supplied two important propositions. First, constitutional language should be understood in the ordinary sense available to voters, rather than through technical meanings. Second, Nevada’s arms guarantee preserves core firearm rights without eliminating targeted, reasonable regulation. The court used this precedent to reject the proposition that the 1982 amendment froze all future firearms legislation.
Strickland v. Waymire, 126 Nev. 230, 235 P.3d 605 (2010), directed attention to public understanding before and around ratification. Its influence explains why the court examined the context surrounding the 1982 amendment instead of relying solely on contemporary arguments about recreational shooting.
Miller v. Burk, 124 Nev. 579, 188 P.3d 1112 (2008), established the interpretive sequence: clear constitutional language controls; ambiguity permits examination of history, public policy, and reason. The opinion proceeded to historical analysis to determine the intended reach of the protected purposes.
Parsons v. Colts Mfg. Co., 137 Nev. 698, 499 P.3d 602 (2021), supplied a prior recognition of the grave danger associated with machine guns in civilian hands. Its discussion of federal and Nevada prohibitions supported the court’s reading of the regulatory context, although it was not itself a decision defining the scope of Article 1, Section 11(1).
Historical and legislative reasoning
The court considered federal regulation under the National Firearms Act of 1934, the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act of 1986, and Nevada’s 1989 machine-gun prohibition. It also relied on legislative consideration of the constitutional amendment, including statements reflecting an understanding that future legislatures could regulate lawful firearm use.
From these materials, the court concluded that Nevada voters intended to entrench ordinary lawful firearm uses, not create immunity for particularly dangerous and unusual weapons. The recreational-use language therefore did not establish a constitutional entitlement to possess an automatic firearm.
Two qualifications matter. First, a legislature cannot defeat a constitutional right simply by declaring its exercise unlawful. The opinion’s “lawful purpose” discussion is persuasive only when read together with its historical conclusion that machine guns were not within the protected category—not as a general power to legislate constitutional rights away.
Second, the opinion describes the 1934 federal legislation as already prohibiting civilian machine-gun possession. More precisely, that legislation principally established taxation and registration controls rather than a universal civilian prohibition; the later federal restriction also contains exceptions, including for certain previously lawful possession. These distinctions qualify the opinion’s broad historical language, although they do not alter its disposition of Armstrong’s claims.
D. Double Jeopardy: The Same Converted Firearm Cannot Sustain Both Possession Convictions
The decisive issue was whether Nevada could punish Armstrong twice for possessing the same handgun: once because it was a machine gun and again because it was a modified semiautomatic firearm.
The court reasoned that proving the charged auto-sear modification necessarily established the machine-gun definition. Both convictions therefore rested on overlapping criminal prohibitions without sufficiently clear legislative authorization for cumulative punishment.
Precedents governing multiple punishments
Kelley v. State, 132 Nev. 348, 371 P.3d 1052 (2016), established that the federal and state Double Jeopardy Clauses forbid multiple punishments for the same offense unless the legislature has unmistakably authorized them. It also directed the court to the statutory-elements inquiry.
Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299 (1932), supplies that inquiry: each offense must require proof of an element the other does not. Different statutory labels and different penalties do not alone establish distinct offenses.
United States v. Dixon, 509 U.S. 688 (1993), provided the formulation quoted through Nevada precedent: offenses are the same for double-jeopardy purposes when the required mutual distinction between their elements is absent.
Jackson v. State, 128 Nev. 598, 291 P.3d 1274 (2012), explained how Nevada applies this rule. Express legislative direction on cumulative punishment controls; otherwise, the same-elements test determines whether both convictions may stand. This was the principal bridge between federal double-jeopardy doctrine and the state statutory dispute.
LaChance v. State, 130 Nev. 263, 321 P.3d 919 (2014), answered the State’s argument that the modification offense contained an additional element. An additional element in only one offense does not satisfy a test requiring each offense to contain an element absent from the other. One-way inclusion still creates a double-jeopardy problem.
Application and remedy
NRS 202.274(1)(c) required proof of modification, while NRS 202.350(1)(b) did not expressly require a modified firearm. Nevertheless, once the State established an auto-sear conversion allowing multiple shots through one trigger function, it also established possession of a machine gun.
The court reversed the modified-firearm conviction, a category D felony carrying a statutory range of one to four years, while preserving the machine-gun conviction, a category C felony carrying a range of one to five years. The remand directed entry of an amended judgment rather than a new trial or a general resentencing proceeding.
The concurrent sentences did not eliminate the constitutional problem. The court treated the additional conviction itself as an impermissible duplicative punishment and found both plain error and prejudice.
An important tension in the lesser-included-offense terminology
The opinion calls the modified-firearm offense a lesser-included offense of machine-gun possession while acknowledging that modification is an additional element of the former. Under conventional elements analysis, if the modified-firearm offense contains every machine-gun-possession element plus modification, the machine-gun offense would ordinarily be the included offense.
This tension does not undermine the central conclusion that both convictions cannot stand absent legislative authorization. It does, however, distinguish the double-jeopardy result from the opinion’s description of which offense is included within the other. The less severe penalty attached to the conviction the court vacated does not independently settle the ordering of statutory elements.
The holding also should not be extended automatically to every alternative prohibited by NRS 202.274. That provision addresses parts and other modifications, whereas this case involved a completed auto-sear conversion producing automatic fire. Whether another configuration necessarily constitutes a machine gun requires a separate examination of its statutory elements.
E. Sufficiency of the Evidence and the Boundary Between Lay and Expert Testimony
The firearm’s classification was established through surveillance footage, testimony from gun-shop employees, and Armstrong’s incriminating statements. The court concluded that this combination permitted a rational jury to find the relevant offenses proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
McNair v. State, 108 Nev. 53, 825 P.2d 571 (1992), adopted the familiar sufficiency standard from Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979): viewing the evidence most favorably to the prosecution, could any rational factfinder find the essential elements beyond a reasonable doubt? These precedents prevented the appellate court from simply reweighing credibility or choosing competing factual inferences.
Armstrong also argued that the store clerk and police officer gave undisclosed expert testimony concerning firearm authenticity and auto-sear operation.
Carroll v. State, 132 Nev. 269, 371 P.3d 1023 (2016), supplied abuse-of-discretion review for the admission of evidence. The question was not whether the appellate court would have made the identical evidentiary choice, but whether the district court exceeded the permissible bounds of its authority.
Burnside v. State, 131 Nev. 371, 352 P.3d 627 (2015), required examination of the testimony’s substance. Information accessible through ordinary perception may support lay testimony; conclusions requiring specialized knowledge or skill ordinarily call for expert treatment.
State v. Tierney, 839 A.2d 38 (N.H. 2003), reinforced the personal-observation limitation: lay testimony must remain within observations a layperson could make. This out-of-state authority was persuasive, not binding.
Applying NRS 50.265, the court regarded the clerk’s identification of the Glock and attached device as visual and physical observation. It likewise treated the officer’s general explanation of an auto-sear’s cause-and-effect operation as understandable without scientific testing or technical measurements.
This holding is fact-sensitive. It does not mean every firearms opinion becomes lay testimony whenever no laboratory testing occurs. Detailed mechanical analysis, restoration capability, or disputed technical functionality may still require expert qualification and notice. The opinion approves the particular observational and general explanatory testimony presented here.
F. Ammunition Evidence: An Identified Error Without Plain-Error Relief
The ammunition issue required the court to separate two propositions: the Glock was loaded with live ammunition, and that ammunition was a particular type described as radically invasive projectile, or RIP, ammunition.
The first proposition had relevance to the State’s claim that the object was a genuine firearm. The second carried an inflammatory potential without tending to prove an element of the charged offenses.
Precedents governing admission and preservation
Chaparro v. State, 137 Nev. 665, 497 P.3d 1187 (2021), supplied abuse-of-discretion review for evidence, including other-act evidence. Armstrong’s relevance objection was preserved and received review on that basis.
Merica v. State, 87 Nev. 457, 488 P.2d 1161 (1971), established that a specific objection not presented below ordinarily cannot be advanced on appeal as though preserved. Armstrong’s trial objections did not preserve his distinct appellate theory that the ammunition description was improper other-act evidence.
Petrocelli v. State, 101 Nev. 46, 692 P.2d 503 (1985), supplied the hearing requirement used to assess the admissibility of other-act evidence. The court held that the district court should have conducted such a hearing concerning the particular ammunition description.
Armstrong v. State, 110 Nev. 1322, 885 P.2d 600 (1994)—a separate, earlier case—explained why the missing hearing mattered: without it, an appellate court lacks a meaningful opportunity to evaluate the trial court’s discretionary decision.
Diomampo v. State, 124 Nev. 414, 185 P.3d 1031 (2008), controlled the consequence on plain-error review. Relief required a showing that the result would have differed had the evidence been excluded. Given the overwhelming evidence supporting guilt, Armstrong could not make that showing.
Although the subsection heading suggests a due-process violation, the operative reasoning is narrower: the court identified an evidentiary error but denied appellate relief because the unpreserved claim did not satisfy the required prejudice standard.
G. Jury Instructions and the Remaining Procedural Claims
Standards for reviewing instructions
Moore v. State, 136 Nev. 620, 475 P.3d 33 (2020), required de novo review of whether an instruction accurately states the law. Crawford v. State, 121 Nev. 744, 121 P.3d 582 (2005), supplied discretionary review of other instructional decisions.
Jackson v. State, 117 Nev. 116, 17 P.3d 998 (2001), defined abuse of discretion as a decision that is arbitrary, capricious, or beyond the bounds of law or reason. This is a different decision from the 2012 Jackson v. State governing double jeopardy.
Operability was not an element of the concealed-firearm offense
The court approved an instruction defining a firearm by its design and stating that it need not be loaded or operable. It relied on the design-based definition in NRS 202.253(3), the express language of the prohibited-person statute, and related precedents.
Pohlabel v. State supported coverage of loaded or unloaded, operable or inoperable firearms under the prohibited-person statute. Its role here differed from its earlier use in constitutional interpretation.
McIntyre v. State, 104 Nev. 622, 764 P.2d 482 (1988), recognized firearms’ per se deadly status under the sentence-enhancement statute, dispensing with separate proof of deadly capability.
State v. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct. (Bankhead), 141 Nev., Adv. Op. 39, 573 P.3d 1254 (2025), invalidated an instruction in an assault case that improperly required proof that a firearm was loaded and operable. Together, these cases supported rejection of an additional operability burden.
Those precedents arose under different statutory provisions. The present opinion’s contribution is its application of the same approach to concealed-firearm possession. That conclusion does not dispense with the distinct statutory requirements governing whether an object qualifies as a machine gun.
The deadly-weapon definition was invited by Armstrong
Pearson v. Pearson, 110 Nev. 293, 871 P.2d 343 (1994), supplied the invited-error doctrine: a party ordinarily cannot obtain reversal for an error that party induced. Armstrong proposed the deadly-weapon language he later challenged, so the court declined to entertain that objection.
This is more than a simple failure to object. Invited error concerns affirmative responsibility for the challenged ruling and therefore presents a stronger barrier than ordinary forfeiture.
Surplus statutory language and an omitted definition
Armstrong challenged inclusion of uncharged statutory alternatives and omission of the definition of “semiautomatic firearm.” Relying on Valdez v. State, 124 Nev. 1172, 196 P.3d 465, the court applied plain-error review because he had not objected below.
The prosecution consistently relied on the auto-sear-equipped firearm theory, and the record did not show that the jury used an uncharged alternative. Armstrong also failed to demonstrate prejudice from the omitted definition. The decision does not endorse unnecessary statutory language as good instructional practice; it holds that these defects did not establish reversible plain error on this record.
No advisory acquittal instruction was required
Middleton v. State, 114 Nev. 1089, 968 P.2d 296 (1998), established that an advisory instruction to acquit under NRS 175.381(2) rests within the district court’s sound discretion. Because sufficient evidence supported guilt, the court upheld the refusal to give that instruction.
Cumulative error
Barlow v. State, 138 Nev. 207, 507 P.3d 1185 (2022), supplied the proposition that one error leaves nothing to cumulate. The court treated the double-jeopardy violation as the only error supporting relief and rejected cumulative reversal.
The opinion nevertheless had already identified an error in the ammunition ruling. Its statement that no other errors existed is therefore textually imprecise. The coherent reading is that the court found no additional prejudicial error warranting broader relief; the reasoning should not be understood as erasing its express criticism of the missing hearing.