A federal appeals court this week put on hold a judge’s ruling overturning California’s 32-year-old ban on so-called “assault weapons.”
Benitez, a George W. Bush appointee, had ruled earlier this month that the state’s decades-old ban on “assault weapons” violates the Second Amendment.
“Under no level of heightened scrutiny can the law survive.”
California laws prohibit the manufacture, use, or sale of an “assault weapon,” defined as a semiautomatic rifle with certain characteristics such as a fixed magazine that has the capacity to hold more than 10 rounds. People who violate the laws can be charged with a felony or a misdemeanor and face prison sentences of up to eight years.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who appealed Benitez’s decision, said on Twitter that California’s laws on “assault weapons” would remain in effect while appellate proceedings continue.
He had described Benitez’s June 4 ruling as “disturbing and troubling and of great concern.”
“This case is not about extraordinary weapons lying at the outer limits of Second Amendment protection. The banned ‘assault weapons’ are not bazookas, howitzers, or machineguns. Those arms are dangerous and solely useful for military purposes,” Benitez wrote in his 94-page ruling earlier this month.
“Instead, the firearms deemed ‘assault weapons’ are fairly ordinary, popular, modern rifles. This is an average case about average guns used in average ways for average purposes,” he said.
California became the first state to ban “assault weapons” in 1989 in the wake of a school shooting that killed five children. Six other states and the District of Columbia also enforce similar bans, according to the gun safety group Giffords.
The 9th Circuit judges on the panel issuing the stay were Barry Silverman, an appointee of former president Bill Clinton; Jacqueline Nguyen, a Barack Obama appointee; and Ryan Nelson, an appointee of Donald Trump.
