Magazine may have been illegal
If firearm add-on held more than 10 rounds it would fall in category targeted by California lawmakers, voters.
Exact size still isn’t clear, but shooter wasn’t old enough to have owned one with a capacity of more than 10 rounds.
Ian David Long, a former Marine gunner, legally purchased a Glock 21 that he used to kill 12 others at a bar Wednesday night in Thousand Oaks, according to the Ventura County Sheriff ’s Office.
Long also had an extended magazine for ammunition, but the Sheriff ’s Office said further analysis was needed to determine how many rounds it could hold.
California law allows the sale and possession of ammunition magazines holding up to 10 rounds.
But if the magazine held more than 10 rounds, Long, who was 28, would not have been able to legally purchase it in California.
California in 1999 banned the sale or import of magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds, though gun owners who already owned higher-capacity magazines at that time were permitted to keep them.
Two years ago, California voters and state lawmakers made it illegal even to possess a firearm magazine capable of holding more than 10 rounds.
The California Rifle & Pistol Assn. successfully challenged that law, persuading a federal judge in San Diego in 2017 to prevent it from taking effect.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the preliminary injunction in a 2-1 vote in July.
Chuck D. Michel, who challenged the law for gun groups and owners, said it would not have stopped Wednesday’s rampage.
The 2016 law was intended to remove magazines from people who had them lawfully for decades because they had been grandfathered in, Michel said.
Because of his age, Long should not have been able to purchase a higher-capacity magazine in California, Michel said.
He speculated that Long may have bought a larger magazine out of state and brought it back illegally or stolen one.
“Either way, it was illegal for him to acquire that magazine, and my clients’ lawsuit did not change that,” Michel said.
Amanda Wilcox, legislation and policy chair for the California Chapters of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, agreed that Long could not have legally obtained or imported a higher-capacity magazine.
But she said the 2016 ban on possession could help save lives by ending the presence of larger magazines, which she noted could be stolen or sold illegally.
She said the larger magazines make it easier for a shooter to take more lives before having to stop and reload.
The 2016 law would require gun owners to move higher-capacity magazines to another state, give them to law enforcement or sell them to a licensed firearms dealer.
Possessing the magazines could be punished as an infraction or a misdemeanor.
U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez, who placed a temporary hold on the law, said in a scathing ruling that the ban on possession could make it difficult for people to defend themselves.
“Certainly in suburban and rural settings, there will be occasions when more than 10 rounds are needed for self-defense,” he wrote.
Benitez, an appointee of President George W. Bush, said California’s gun laws were “among the harshest in the nation” and “filled with criminal law traps for people for people of common intelligence who desire to obey the law.”
His decision noted that there had been 10 mass shootings in California from 2009 to 2013 and that in only two of them would the criminalization of the magazines have had even a “marginal” effect.
Benitez is now considering whether to make the injunction permanent. Whatever he rules is likely to be appealed to the 9th Circuit.