Saint Benitez delivers once again:
LEGAL ALERT:
A Federal Court has determined California's Standard Capacity Magazine Ban is unconstitutional & ordered enforcement to be halted.
However, the Court delayed enforcement of the order for ten days to allow the State time to file an appeal with the Ninth Circuit.
This means the ban is officially ruled unconstitutional by a Federal Court, but enforcement of the ban has yet to be stopped.
California will appeal and request the Ninth Circuit extend the 10-day delay to leave the ban in place during their appeal.
You can read the Court's decision here:
Alright, a highlights thread of Benitez's ruling in Duncan.
He comes out swinging against the Newsoms of the world, correctly noting his job is to enforce the law, not to fear public criticism.
This was one of the point we raised in our arguments when California kept trying to set 10 as some magical line. Different states set different limits, for what is a fundamental right applicable to all states.
Benitez notes that California would almost assuredly reduce the ten round limit anyway. It is arbitrary.
As we've argued repeatedly, the States defending such laws are just trying to smuggle interest balancing back into the analysis under the pretense of it being a "plain text" analysis.
Sadly, Judge Benitez does not read @TheReloadSite
apparently. @StephenGutowski
Gonna need to update the law review article to include Judge Benitez in the section on modern judicial commentary.
And yes, obviously magazines are "Arms".
This argument was indeed a hilarious one the state made. It doesn't magically become a protected arm if it has ten rounds instead of eleven lol.
I am SO glad he included this. Newsom's lawyers in the 1327 litigation took over for Bonta when he refused to defend that law, and we successfully baited them into taking this position. They didn't know they were supposed to gaslight.
Pointing out more contradictions in the state's position, given current CA law makes a magazine literally necessary to fire a modern handgun for it to be sold here.
Benitez takes apart the argument states like California are making regarding an arm only being protected if it is frequently actually used for self-defense.
Benitez takes apart the tired "weapon of war" argument.
Benitez goes through an excellent historical analysis that is more thorough than the superficial one we've seen other courts apply (on purpose, so they could uphold the laws).
Benitez tells the state its discriminatory laws are no good here.
He zeroes in on the state's reliance on regulations of concealed carry of weapons which were mostly note firearms.
A point we emphasized in our briefing was that bans on possession of common arms just did not exist until the 20th century. Benitez got the message.
I can see the Duke Law Blog article already.
Benitez notes that while territory laws are of little value under Bruen, even if they were, the territories didn't ban any guns in the 19th century.
This one seems to just be in there as a historical fun fact lol.
As I've long maintained, the lack of regulation of revolvers and repeating rifles decides this issue.
I was actually shocked that the State argued that gunpowder storage was their best analogue, as that is clearly dissimilar because the reasons for it had nothing to do with stopping gun-related crime.
Yep. The "militia right only!" people are weirdly wary of citing actual laws about citizen militias, because they destroy the "weapon of war" arguments.
What a banger of an opinion. Great read, and excited to help defend it in the 9th circuit.