Court Rules California ‘high capacity’ magazine ban is unconstitutional

  While so many things seem to be headed in the wrong direction one thing that has been very interesting to watch is what has been happening with the Second Amendment. With a couple of exceptions (the President unilaterally and unconstitutionally banning bump stocks and with so-called red-flag gun confiscation laws now being debated in the Congress as examples) things have been moving in the right direction.

  Just recently South Dakota became the 15th state to adopt constitutional carry, a North Carolina county became the latest to declare itself a “gun sanctuary,” and the courts have been ruling in favor of the second amendment.

  The latest court decision comes from the state of California where a Federal judge has ruled that state’s ban of magazines over 10 rounds is unconstitutional. Here is more:

In one of the strongest judicial statements in favor of the Second Amendment to date, Judge Roger T. Benitez of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California determined on Friday that California’s ban on commonly possessed firearm magazines violates the Second Amendment.

The case is Duncan v. Becerra.

The NRA-supported case had already been up to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on the question of whether the law’s enforcement should be suspended during proceedings on its constitutionality. Last July, a three judge panel of the Ninth Circuit upheld Judge Benitez’s suspension of enforcement and sent the case back to him for further proceedings on the merits of the law itself.

Judge Benitez rendered his opinion late Friday afternoon and handed Second Amendment supporters a sweeping victory by completely invalidating California’s 10-round limit on magazine capacity. “Individual liberty and freedom are not outmoded concepts,” he declared. 

In a scholarly and comprehensive opinion, Judge Benitez subjected the ban both to the constitutional analysis he argued was required by the U.S. Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller and a more complicated and flexible test the Ninth Circuit has applied in prior Second Amendment cases.

Either way, Judge Benitez ruled, the law would fail. Indeed, he characterized the California law as “turning the Constitution upside down.” He also systematically dismantled each of the state’s purported justifications for the law, demonstrating the factual and legal inconsistencies of their claims.

NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox hailed the decision as a “huge win for gun owners” and a “landmark recognition of what courts have too often treated as a disfavored right.”

  First of all, the idea that a 10 round magazine is “high capacity” is just silly on its face and shows us that the people who are making these laws do not even know what they are talking about. 

  This is a great victory for gun rights activists and for the Second Amendment but this is still not over as an appeal will head to the 9th Circuit and we know how that court will rule. We also know the 9th Circuit is the most overturned court in the nation and because yesterday’s decision was based on the Heller case it would seem likely the Supreme Court will rule against California’s “high capacity” magazine ban.

malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium