Quote of the day—Hon. Roger T. Benitez

Plaintiffs contend that there is no genuine dispute that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the individual right of every law-abiding citizen to acquire, possess, and keep common firearms and their common magazines holding more than 10 rounds – magazines which are typically possessed for lawful purposes.  Plaintiffs also contend that the state of California has not carried its burden to demonstrate a reasonable fit between the flat ban on such magazines and its important interests in public safety.  Plaintiffs contend that the state’s magazine ban thus cannot survive constitutionally-required heightened scrutiny and they are entitled to declaratory and injunctive relief as a matter of law.  Plaintiffs are correct.

Accordingly, based upon the law and the evidence, upon which there is no genuine issue, and for the reasons stated in this opinion, Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment is granted.69  California Penal Code § 32310 is hereby declared to be unconstitutional in its entirety and shall be enjoined.

Hon. Roger T. Benitez
United States District Judge
March 29, 2019
VIRGINIA DUNCAN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. XAVIER BECERRA, in his official capacity as attorney General of the State of California, Defendant
ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT, DECLARING CALIFORNIA PENAL CODE § 32310 UNCONSTITUTIONAL and ENJOINING ENFORCEMENT

[Although I avoid it, sometimes I travel to or through California. When I do, I take a different gun with me rather than the usual STI DVC limited because the smallest magazine I have for it is 15 rounds. I take my Ruger P-89 with a couple 10-round magazines for when I can legally have it ready for use (such as in my motel room).

A stay of the enforcement of this judgement has been made so I will have to continue taking the P-89 until this goes through the appeal process. But I look forward to taking my usual carry gun and 18-round magazines and thumbing my nose at the tyrannical California politicians.—Joe]

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9 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Hon. Roger T. Benitez

  1. So anti-American politicians pass anti-constitutional “law”, causing havoc, pain, suffering and market distortions, causing people to incur great expense to fight it in court. Who is then held accountable for such attacks on liberty? Do the perpetrators in government, and their supporters and handlers, just get to do it over and over and over and over again, until we’re bankrupted or senile and can’t fight them anymore?

    This was one of the failures of the American Civil War; the Democratic Party with all it’s anti-American ideology was allowed to survive, and to continue doing what it had been doing all along. The other major failure was that the Republican Party continued to exist. By contrast, when the Germans were defeated in W.W. II their political party was dismantled, chief perps were put to trial and executed, and we occupied their stupid, nasty little country for decades after, ostensibly to make sure they weren’t going to do the socialism all over again.

    Still, the socialists, the papists, the Democrats, Republicans and all the other flavors of authoritarian operate right under our noses in plain sight, day after day, and no one does anything about them. Instead we support them all. We even pretend, universally, that they have a right to exist as enemies of liberty, occupying our institutions and even “educating” our children, as though warring against liberty were a legitimate, even noble, political process deserving even of some modicum of respect. Thus we will have asked for, no, begged for, demanded and guaranteed the destruction that’s coming.

      • Ultimately, the only effective solution is the one that was applied to the Nazis. Fortunately, my father’s generation had the testicular fortitude to apply it.
        More recently, the Romanians found it and dealt with the Ceausescus by dragging them into the street and executing them.
        Unfortunately, I fear, too many Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Ceausescu wannabes have been allowed to rise to positions of power and influence. Our children and young adults are being indoctrinated and spirituallly, intellectually, and morally neutered with fluoride, mercury, soy, sexual perversion, and drugs,
        So unless the needed correction happens very soon, I doubt that my great grandchildren will ever have a clue about true liberty, or the will to reclaim it.

  2. Joe,
    Do you travel by car or airplane? Is CA like NY and will arrest you when you declare your handgun at the airport?

    Bill

    • Mostly airplane. But most recently I traveled into California via car from Arizona after flying to Arizona.

      No, possession of a handgun does not require license to possess as it does in NJ and NYC.

  3. Judge Benitez did an interesting thing between the time he issued this ruling and the time he issued the stay pending appeal. He allowed every magazine manufacturer in the world to ship to California the kinds of magazines formerly banned there. 20 round, 30 round, 50 round, 100 round magazines were legal to buy, for a week, and legal to possess after that (at least until the case is decided at the appellate levels, forever if the SC agrees with Benitez).

    So how many individual items does it take for a thing to become “in common use” and not susceptible to a ban under Heller and MacDonald? 1 million? More? Because I think the judge let more than a million individual magazines into the state legally before he issued the stay. I don’t think this will be an issue in the appeal decisions, but it might be. and it would only influence any honest judge to allow the magazine ban to die based on the common use of normal 30 round magazines, (and the irrationality of banning a magazine of any capacity, after making that decision).

    I think the 9th Circuit will have a hard time twisting reality, based on the excellent decision issued here, to reinstate a ban. And if it does, the 9th is in for another slapdown from at least 5 Supremes, and maybe more.

    • The 9th just sided with Trump on shipping asylum seekers back to Mexico. They may not require the slapdown at all.

    • No details, but someone reported that a CA individual bought a warehouse full of mags, to the tune of 500,000, to be shipped into Cali. Party favors?

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