Another hearing on ammo magazines
A federal appeals court took steps Thursday toward reviving California’s voterapproved ban on possessing largecapacity gun magazines, setting aside a panel’s ruling that declared the ban unconstitutional and granting the state’s request for a new hearing before a larger panel.
The ban on magazines holding more than 10 cartridges was part of Proposition 63, a November 2016 initiative whose sponsors included then-Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom. They said the weapons were commonly used in mass shootings and had little to do with the constitutional right of selfdefense.
But U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez of San Diego blocked the law in 2017, two
days before it was scheduled to take effect. In a suit by a National Rifle Association affiliate on behalf of five gun owners, Benitez said, “Disarming California’s lawabiding citizens is not a constitutionally permissible policy choice.”
A panel of the Ninth U.S Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld his ruling in a 21 decision last August. But the full appeals court said Thursday that a majority of its judges had voted to rescind the panel’s ruling and grant a new hearing before an 11judge panel, at a date not yet scheduled.
Benitez’s order still prohibits the state from enforcing the ban on possessing largecapacity magazines. He has also declared unconstitutional a 2000 state law banning sale of the gun magazines and a 2013 law prohibiting their purchase, but has allowed the state to enforce those laws while it appeals his rulings in separate proceedings.
“Largecapacity magazines have been used in many horrific mass shootings around the country, including right here in California,” said Attorney General Xavier Becerra, whose office is defending the state law. “That’s why today’s decision by the Ninth Circuit to rehear this case is critical.”
The NRA said it was not surprised by the court’s order, and would “continue to fight to defend the Second Amendment in California and throughout the country.”
Federal courts have upheld similar bans on gun magazines in other states. In 2015, a different threejudge Ninth Circuit panel allowed Sunnyvale to enforce a ban on possessing the magazines within city limits, a ruling Becerra’s office cited in defense of the statewide ban.
But the panel in the August ruling said the justifications for restrictions in a small, affluent community like Sunnyvale, with a crime rate less than half of California’s average, could not be applied statewide.
“Those who live in rural areas where the local sheriff may be miles away, lawabiding citizens trapped in highcrime areas, communities that distrust or depend less on law enforcement, and many more who rely on their firearms to protect themselves and their families” can have a legitimate need for highcapacity magazines to defend themselves, Judge Kenneth Lee said in the majority opinion.