U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez of San Diego ruled Friday that the state´s definition of illegal military-style rifles unlawfully deprives law-abiding Californians of weapons commonly allowed in most other states.
He handed down the two page ruling in response to a lawsuit filed against the State of California by James Miller, Patrick Russ, Ryan Peterson and the the San Diego County Gun Owners Political Action Committee.
-Robert
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Ho hum. This is the same judge that overturned the magazine ban, then within a couple days put a stay on his own decision.
The same thing will happen with this. There will be a very short window to buy ARs and parts needed to convert those butt ugly work-arounds they own now, then the decision will either have a stay put on it or there will be an appeal. That window will be closed probably by the end of the day today.
In the meantime, complete rifles and parts prices will go higher than they already are - if you can even find them - as Californians take advantage of that window of opportunity.
Then, a year or three down the road, when and if the case is heard and upheld, California politicians will put some very unreasonable conditions on ownership such as how they must be stored, how they can be transported, where they can be used, what types of ammo can be used, etc etc etc.
And then of course, there's the mandatory registration at the time of purchase that is part of any and all gun sales in the State of California.
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And after I wrote all that, I was browsing my regular news sites and saw this:
"Under no level of heightened scrutiny can the law survive," Benitez said. He issued a permanent injunction against enforcement of the law but stayed it for 30 days to give state Attorney General Rob Bonta time to appeal.
He issued a stay against his own decision. The window of opportunity that I mentioned isn't going to happen.
Nothing's changed now and nothing will change in the future.
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And then there's this from another California news station:
The governor said he won’t be backing down on this matter and that there will be continued efforts to put stricter gun laws in place.
“As the son of a judge, I grew up with deep respect for the judicial process and the importance of a judge’s ability to make impartial fact-based rulings, but the fact that this judge compared the AR-15 – a weapon of war that’s used on the battlefield – to a Swiss Army Knife completely undermines the credibility of this decision and is a slap in the face to the families who’ve lost loved ones to this weapon,” Newsom said.
