Judge Rules California’s High Capacity Magazine Ban Unconstitutional!

Times of San Diego commented:

California’s law banning gun magazines that hold more than 10 bullets was declared unconstitutional Friday by a federal judge in San Diego.

U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez ruled that the California law violated the 2nd Amendment rights of gun owners and issued an injunction barring state officials from enforcing it.

Benitez concluded that the state law effectively made criminals out of ordinary citizens and was an overreaction to high-profile gun crimes, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

“Bad political ideas cannot be stopped by criminalizing bad political speech,” wrote Benitez, an appointee of President George W. Bush.

“Crime waves cannot be broken with warrantless searches and unreasonable seizures. Neither can the government response to a few mad men with guns and ammunition be a law that turns millions of responsible, law-abiding people trying to protect themselves into criminals. Yet, this is the effect of California’s large-capacity magazine law.”

Benitez had issued a preliminary injunction in 2017 stopping enforcement of the law. The injunction was upheld in July by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The executive director of the National Rifle Association‘s political and lobbying arm called Friday’s ruling a “huge win for gun owners” and a “landmark recognition of what courts have too often treated as a disfavored right.”

Judge Benitez used the example of home invasions to explain why allowing for high capacity magazines to be owned by gun owners is necessary and slammed down comments from liberals who countered that the magazines contributed to mass shootings.

Here's more details from NBC News:

Benitez described three home invasions, two of which ended with the female victims running out of bullets.

In the third case, the pajama-clad woman with a high-capacity magazine took on three armed intruders, firing at them while simultaneously calling for help on her phone.

"She had no place to carry an extra magazine and no way to reload because her left hand held the phone with which she was still trying to call 911," the judge wrote, saying she killed one attacker while two escaped.

He ruled that magazines holding more than 10 rounds are "arms" under the U.S. Constitution, and that the California law "burdens the core of the Second Amendment by criminalizing the acquisition and possession of these magazines that are commonly held by law-abiding citizens for defense of self, home, and state."

The goal of the California law is to deter mass-shootings, with Becerra previously listing as an example the terrorist assault that killed 14 and injured 22 in San Bernardino.

Benitez, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, called such shootings "exceedingly rare" while emphasizing the everyday robberies, rapes and murders he said might be countered with firearms.

Way to go Benitez for standing up for the protection of our individual liberties as set forth by our founding fathers!