Federal judge overturns state law banning gun magazines

SAN DIEGO - California's law banning gun magazines that hold more than 10 bullets was declared unconstitutional on Friday, March 29 by a federal judge in San Diego.

U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez ruled that the California law violated the 2nd Amendment rights of gun owners and issued an injunction barring state officials from enforcing it.

Benitez concluded that the state law effectively made criminals out of ordinary citizens and was an overreaction to high-profile gun crimes, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

"Bad political ideas cannot be stopped by criminalizing bad political speech,'' wrote Benitez, an appointee of President George W. Bush. "Crimewaves cannot be broken with warrantless searches and unreasonable seizures. Neither can the government response to a few madmen with guns and ammunition be a law that turns millions of responsible, law-abiding people trying to protect themselves into criminals. Yet, this is the effect of California's large-capacity magazine law.''

Benitez had issued a preliminary injunction in 2017 stopping enforcement of the law. The injunction was upheld in July by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The executive director of the National Rifle Association's political and lobbying arm called Friday's ruling a "huge win for gun owners'' and a "landmark recognition of what courts have too often treated as a disfavored right.''

"Judge Benitez took the Second Amendment seriously and came to the conclusion required by the Constitution,'' said Chris W. Cox of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action.

"The same should be true of any court analyzing a ban on a class of arms law-abiding Americans commonly possess for self-defense or other lawful purposes.''

Sen. Scott Wiener called the ruling a "ridiculous interpretation of the Second Amendment.

"Nothing in the Constitution creates a 'right' to buy high capacity magazines, whose only purpose is to commit mass murder,'' Wiener, D-San Francisco, tweeted, pledging to support an appeal of the ruling.