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California’s Ban on Magazines Holding More Than 10 Rounds Is Constitutional, 9th Circuit Decides

Today’s 7-4 ruling by an 11-judge en bloc panel of U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, declared California’s ban on magazines holding more than 10 rounds constitutional, despite previous conclusions of a lower court, and a 3-judge panel of 9th Circuit that it violated the Second Amendment.

“According to the Second Amendment, intermediate scrutiny is applicable. [the ban]It is an acceptable fit for the significant government interest of decreasing gun violence,” Judge Susan Graber wrote today for the majority. Duncan v. Bonta. The statute does not outlaw weapons, but limits the size of magazines that can be used with firearms. This record shows (a) how the restriction interferes minimally with self-defense’s core rights, since there is no evidence of anyone being unable to protect their home or family because of the absence of large-capacity magazines; (b) whether the limitation helps save lives.

She stated that “large-capacity magazines” have been involved in roughly three-quarters (or more) of gun-machetes with 10 or more victims and 100 percent of those with 20 or more fatalities. More people were killed and injured when large-capacity magazines were involved in mass shootings than when they used smaller capacity magazines.

Graber said that the ban on large capacity magazines being legalized in California supports California’s efforts to limit mass shootings.

Graber’s decision denied that the banning of these magazines was an unconstitutional take of property without compensation. Since the owners of illegal magazines can modify or sell them, the law doesn’t deprive the owners of any economic use.

Circuit Judge Patrick Bonabay writes in dissension that the 9th Circuit uses “intermediate scrutiny” to ensure that the Second Amendment is not in the way of a firearms regulation that aims at achieving a “conceivably wise policy measure.” We are effectively giving lawmakers an empty check that they don’t violate the Second Amendment. Indeed, post-HellerWe have not yet passed a firearms regulation.”

Since 2000, California has made it illegal to “manufacture or import high-capacity magazines” in California. But, possessing magazines that you own was still legal before the passage of Proposition 63 in 2016. This law “introduced a criminal penalty for illegal possession of large capacity magazines for up to a one year.”

The state now has the power to enforce its ban of magazines with more than 10 rounds thanks to today’s judgment. (The ban on magazines containing more than 10 rounds was blocked while the case was being heard in court. Our special centurion classes, which are current and retired officers of the police, do not have to comply with the gun control law.

It is not easy to convince citizens that they are peacefully possessing legal goods to give up their rights when the state wants to seize those items. This has been proven repeatedly in history. Today’s 9th Circuit ruling means that we can expect to see more police harassment and collateral damage from police actions against fundamentally innocent gun owners. California won’t be safer.

 

Scrutinizing Scrutiny

Contra Graber’s decision that “intermediate oversight” should determine how the Second Amendment should been dealt with may be 9th Circuit practice but not accepted Supreme Court doctrine. In fact, the Supreme Court is challenged by the 9th Circuit to clarify if it believes the 9th Circuit misapplies its standard of scrutiny in relation to the Second Amendment.

The whole issue of “scrutiny”, for those who prefer to think that “shall not make any law” resolves the matter, might be confusing. However, the 9th Circuit considers it important to make clear distinctions. Accordingly to its reasoning: “Strict scrutiny only applies to laws which both involve a core Second Amendment legal right and place an unreasonable burden on that right,” while “Intermediate scrutiny applies to laws that don’t implicate that core Second Amendment law or place an unreasonable burden on that right.”

In order to understand what these terms mean in practice, strict scrutiny means that a law must show “both narrow tailoring of a compelling public interest and use of the most restrictive means.” Intermediate scrutiny requires only that the law “is reasonable in relation to an important governmental concern.”

As the 9th Circuit interprets the 2008, the Second Amendment’s core is. Heller decision is about self-defense in the home. They concluded that the ban on magazines “imposes only small burdens on the Second Amendment rights and that intermediate scrutiny is appropriate.”

The Court considers the imposition of the Second Amendment by the law to be a minor matter. According to today’s decision, the ban on large capacity magazines only has one practical effect: shooters must pause after they have fired ten rounds to either reload the magazine or replace it. The record does not indicate that this restriction places any additional burden on Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arm.

Graber could not locate any real evidence to support the claim that self defense in the home is dependent on the use of banned magazines. She concluded therefore, the ban on magazine publishing did not affect the fundamental right. The plaintiffs tried argumentation, calling upon the HellerThe decision relied in some places on the frequency of a weapon, and that at least half the American magazine buyers chose the type California was banning. Graber didn’t think this mattered.

In its decision, the 9th Circuit asserted that there was a clear and significant interest by the state to limit magazine size in mass shootings. The decision also insists that the law does not substantially damage the Second Amendment’s core self-defense-in-the-home purpose. Their “intermediate scrutiny” analysis led to the conclusion that the law was perfectly constitutional.

The Judge Bumatay dissents, insisting that the majority got it wrong right from the beginning; any kind of “scrutiny” analysis is not the best way for the Supreme Court to view the Second Amendment.

Bumatay is looking back HellerFor clues on how to decide laws which implicate or violate the Second Amendment, see. His 9th Circuit should perform an “exhaustive analysis of text, tradition and history” of the Second Amendment. Our court could have abandoned the interest-balancing approach of our 9th Circuit and adhered to what was instructed by the Supreme Court.

Bombatay claims that if they had done so, the 9th Circuit might have reached the same conclusion as today’s majority Graber decision. Bombatay argues that “firearms and magazines capable firing over ten rounds” have been around since the founding of this nation. These guns were widely used throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. They are used in the United States today in millions. They are protected under the Second Amendment because there have been no restrictions on large capacity magazines for a long time.

According to the Constitution, the magazines that the state had banned are “lawfully owned by millions of Americans and included on most of the best-selling firearms today.” The 9th Circuit could have kept this ban in place.

Bumatay regards the 9th Circuit’s scrutiny analysis to be “nothing beyond a blackbox used by judges for upholding favored laws, and striking down those that are not.” This isn’t how the Supreme Court wanted lower courts do Second Amendment law jurisprudence. He reiterates this view and quotes several Supreme Court justices.

Justice Clarence Thomas was the one who gave the best of these quotes. In a 2020 dissension from the denial of certiorari, he wrote the following: Grewal v. RogersThis Heller“Expressly declined the invitation to assess Second Amendment challenges in an “interest balancing inquiry”, with the interests of the Second Amendment on the one hand and the concerns about governmental safety on the other.

Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke, in an even more salubrious separate opinion, stated that the 9th Circuit has a “single-minded focus on making sure that panel opinions enforcing Section 2 are swiftly reversed.” Our court believes that the Second Amendment should be considered a part of the living constitution and is distrusted by gun owners. These beliefs drive the caselaw of this circuit, disregarding the Second Amendment’s meaning. They also fully use the Supreme Court’s discretion in cases to ensure no government regulation fails to meet our ridiculously “heightened” Second Amendment scrutiny.