The NRA is reporting that U.S. District Court of California for the Southern District of California Judge Roger T. Benitez has ruled unconstitutional the state’s gun magazine ban on those that exceed a 10-round limit.
Judge Benitez ruled that when applied, the law would not hold up. He declared “Individual liberty and freedom are not outmoded concepts.” No, they are not. What a refreshing thing to hear from a federal court.
The NRA (who supported this case) called Benitez’s ruling “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.”
Judge Benitez, who said the California law was “turning the Constitution upside down,” demolished the state’s rationalizations for implementing the law. Benitez showed the state’s “facts” could not withstand constitutional challenges and their legal arguments were inconsistent.
Chris W. Cox, NRA-ILA director, welcomed the ruling saying it was a “huge win for gun owners.” He also believes the ruling was badly needed since the courts often treat the Second Amendment as a second-class right.
This ruling bans the state from enforcing the magazine ban, allowing law-abiding gun owners to breathe easier—at least for now. California will no doubt appeal because that’s what the totalitarian leftists who run that state do. They care little for any “scholarly and comprehensive” Constitution-based rulings on the Second Amendment, an unalienable right they loathe. And since the state will appeal the decision to the Ninth Circuit, we can hope that following whatever legal embarassment they belch from the bench, it’ll eventually get a fair hearing in the U.S. Supreme Court.
