By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
San Francisco’s KGO is reporting that the Golden State’s long-running ban on so-called “assault weapons” could be overturned by a federal judge “as early as this week.”
It’s all up to U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, whose track record on Second Amendment cases has been pretty good for gun rights groups. In the case of Miller v. Bonta, several gun rights organizations and four private citizens are challenging the ban, which may no longer be permitted under new guidelines set down by the U.S. Supreme Court in last year’s Bruen ruling.
In that opinion, authored by Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, the high court did away with “interest balancing” as a factor in deciding Second Amendment cases. Henceforth, gun rights cases must rely on historically-provable regulation rather than contemporary gun laws adopted to address a government interest.
According to KGO, final response briefs were due today (Tuesday) and the ruling “is believed to be imminent.”
Possibly weakening California’s position was its response brief, which—according to the reply from the Second Amendment Foundation and its fellow plaintiffs—amounts to 25 pages of trying to re-litigate the case, using “arguments and strategies already rejected by federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court.”
SAF is joined by the San Diego County Gun Owners Political Action Committee, California Gun Rights Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition and four private citizens, including James Miller, for whom the case is named. They are represented by attorneys George M. Lee at Seiler Epstein, LLP and John W. Dillon at the Dillon Law Group, APC.
Plaintiffs note in their response brief, “The State’s attempt to ignore this Court’s instructions and introduce last-minute further “expert testimony” offered in other cases on the ‘dangerous and unusual weapons’ question—which has already been settled by this Court—is also a naked appeal to interest balancing and is irrelevant to the question of historical analogues requested by this Court (and required under Bruen). At this point, Defendants are simply padding the record with old (and misplaced) arguments and extraneous declarations.”
SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb noted in a Tuesday morning statement, “It seems clear to us the state is trying to revive arguments they cannot use because they have no historical evidence to support their gun ban. The court shouldn’t tolerate such legal shenanigans, which ultimately attempt to reframe this case into a policy matter, which boils down to whether average citizens ‘need’ a semiautomatic firearm.
“The Supreme Court already settled this,” he continued. “It’s not up to the government to make that choice, it’s up to the American people, and their rights are not subject to public opinion polls or the whims of anti-gun politicians in Sacramento.”
If Judge Benitez does strike down the gun ban, California will almost certainly appeal immediately to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. From there, the case would go to the Supreme Court, which has already granted certiorari to a case challenging a similar ban in Maryland.
