November 30, 2021
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Federal court upholds California law banning large-capacity gun magazines - San Francisco Chronicle

John Parkin, owner Coyote Point Armory in Burlingame, demonstrates the adjustable stock on an Juggernaut 9MM JT-9 AR-15 which contains a magazine lock to avoid registering it as an assault weapon in California.
John Parkin, owner Coyote Point Armory in Burlingame, demonstrates the adjustable stock on an Juggernaut 9MM JT-9 AR-15 which contains a magazine lock to avoid registering it as an assault weapon in California.

California’s voter-approved ban on possessing large-capacity gun magazines was upheld Tuesday by a federal appeals court, which said the devices were commonly used in mass killings and had little relationship to self-defense.

The ban on magazines holding more than 10 cartridges was approved by state lawmakers and voters in 2016 and was scheduled to take effect in July 2017, but was blocked two days before its effective date by a federal judge in San Diego in a suit by a National Rifle Association affiliate on behalf of five gun owners.

“Disarming California’s law-abiding citizens is not a constitutionally permissible policy choice,” U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez said.

But the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which has overturned other rulings by Benitez striking down gun laws, said Tuesday that the prohibition on high-capacity magazines was a reasonable public-safety measure similar to laws in a number of other states.

The law “interferes only minimally with the core right of self-defense, as there is no evidence that anyone ever has been unable to defend his or her home and family due to the lack of a large-capacity magazine.” Judge Susan Graber said in the 7-4 ruling.

In the last half-century, she said, large-capacity magazines have been used in about three-quarters of shootings in the United States that caused 10 or more deaths, and in all shootings causing 20 or more deaths.

A panel of the appeals court had upheld Benitez’s ruling in a 2-1 decision in August 2020, but the full appeals court then granted the state’s request for a rehearing before a larger panel, leading to Tuesday’s ruling.

Dissenting from the ruling, Judge Patrick Bumatay said the court was allowing California to ban magazines “commonly owned by millions of law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.” Judge Lawrence VanDyke, in a separate dissent, urged the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case and strike down the state law.

State Attorney General Rob Bonta called the ruling “a victory for public safety in California” during a nationwide “epidemic” of gun violence.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @BobEgelko



source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Federal-court-upholds-California-law-banning-16663503.php

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