Pasadena’s 9th Circuit Court of Appeals To Consider Constitutionality Of Ban On Large Capacity Gun Magazines

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Pasadena on Tuesday will hear a case en banc on the constitutionality of large capacity gun magazines (LCM).

The case was heard once before in August and will now be decided by all 11 judges on the court of appeals.

Eight states, including California and the District of Columbia, have banned LCMs in an effort to stop mass shootings.

In 2016, two-thirds of California voters approved Proposition 63, which prohibits ammunition magazines that carry more than 10 rounds and requires certain people to pass a background check in order to purchase ammunition.

“Our common sense gun safety measures here in California have a track record of success in doing what they were meant to do — keep our communities safe,” said former Attorney General Xavier Becerra after a divided three-judge court of appeals panel last August upheld a federal district court’s ruling that California’s ban on LCMs was unconstitutional.

“We disagree with the court’s initial decision and will continue to use every tool we have to defend the constitutionality of our laws,” Becerra said at the time.

Becerra has since been appointed by President Joe Biden to serve as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He was replaced as state attorney general by former Asssemblymember Rob Bonta.

Proposition 63 requires LCM owners, regardless of when they acquired the ammunition, to either destroy it, sell it to a licensed firearm dealer, surrender it to a law enforcement agency or modify it to hold less than 10 rounds of ammunition.
The case is one two wending its way through the courts.

In a second case, Gov. Gavin Newsom has appealed a district court judge’s decision that California’s assault weapon laws are unconstitutional.

Earlier this month, San Diego U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, who ruled against Proposition 63, ruled against the state’s ban on military-style rifles.

According to the Associated Press, Benitez ruled that the state’s definition of illegal military-style rifles unlawfully deprived law-abiding Californians of weapons commonly allowed in most other states and by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Under no level of heightened scrutiny can the law survive,” Benitez wrote.
He issued a permanent injunction against enforcement of the law but stayed it for 30 days to give Bonta time to appeal.

The ruling was “a direct threat to public safety and the lives of innocent Californians, period,” Newsom said.

“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.

“We’re not backing down from this fight, and we’ll continue pushing for common sense gun laws that will save lives,” Newsom said.