Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
When the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declared the California magazine ban unconstitutional, it had to come as quite a shock to lawmakers in the Golden State. They’re used to being able to do whatever they wanted when it came to guns and the courts simply rubber-stamping their approval. Then, all of a sudden, the courts are turning against them.
It’s almost as if rights actually matter to some jurists. Who knew?
Now, those lawmakers are scrambling to try and salvage their magazine ban.
California Democrats are launching a longshot legal maneuver to protect a gun-control law that a federal appeals court declared unconstitutional.
Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D.) requested an “en banc” review of a three-judge panel that ruled the state’s ban on the possession of any magazine holding more than 10 rounds, even those Californians previously bought legally, ran afoul of the Second Amendment. Such a review would convene every judge in the Ninth Circuit. Chuck Michel, president of the California Rifle & Pistol Association, said gun-rights advocates are willing to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court if Becerra succeeds in his appeal.
“This case may present the opportunity to set things straight on the broader issue of what the standard of review test should be when considering any Second Amendment challenge,” he told the Washington Free Beacon. “The Supreme Court seems inclined to do away with the complicated subjective tests that many courts have wrongly applied in Second Amendment cases, in favor of a clearer, more objective ‘originalist’ approach that considers the text, history, and tradition of a law to determine what infringements might be tolerated.”
However, don’t think of this as some kind of Hail Mary play. A similar attempt in 2016 worked, so an en banc review may well fall against gun rights activists.
But it shouldn’t.
The truth is that the ruling is one of only a handful that clearly communicate the reality of what the Heller ruling laid out. You see, these magazines are in common use and aren’t particularly dangerous. I mean, they’re magazines. In and of themselves, they’re not dangerous at all.
Yet the problem is that an en banc review by the Ninth Circuit may not look at it that way, and that’s a big problem.
Until then, though, we’ve got this ruling and there’s no guarantee that an en banc ruling will go California’s way, either. In fact, if they don’t, things might get even more interesting for the most gun controlled state in the nation. That could have some interesting ramifications throughout the entire West Coast–a rather gun controlled West Coast, to be clear about it.
Becerra’s gambit probably isn’t a gamble, but it’s about what we should have all expected coming down the pike. Well, it’s now here and we’ll have to sit and wait to find out what if it’ll be the Ninth Circus of old or the new court we’ve seen level several other good rulings in recent years. Here’s hoping that the Trump judicial picks have made a real difference.
Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger and lifetime shooter. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia. He's also the host of Unloaded TV on YouTube. https://bearingarms.com/author/tomknighton/
https://bearingarms.com/cam-e/2020/09/02/activists-spin-gun-sales/