9th Circuit stays ruling against California ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines

The American debate over the legality of modern gun laws was again on display this week in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, where a panel of 11 judges hit pause on a decision overturning California’s ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines. The court’s liberal majority found that the state of California had made “strong arguments” for why the ban on ammunition magazines with more than 10 rounds in them is constitutional. The jurists added that such a stay would have “no effect” on the public’s ability to purchase a “wide range of firearms, as much ammunition as they want, and an unlimited number of magazines containing ten rounds or fewer.” The majority also wrote that “public interest tips in the favor of a stay,” as “mass shootings nearly always involve large-capacity magazines.” The panel’s conservative minority, dissenting, called their majority colleagues’ position “laughably absurd” and part of a pattern of decisions by liberal 9th Circuit jurists that has given “a blank check for governments to restrict firearms in any way they pleased.” Circuit Judge Patrick J. Bumatay, a Trump appointee, accused the liberal majority of ignoring not only the U.S. Constitution but also the U.S. Supreme Court’s clear directives on how to properly analyze restrictions on the 2nd Amendment in its decision last year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn. He said in a statement that he was disappointed with the court’s “misinterpretation of the Bruen ruling” but “confident that the mandates of the Constitution and the Bruen decision will win in the end.” He said his group “will continue to defend the rights of gun owners in California all the way to the Supreme Court.” Bonta, in his own statement, said he was “relieved that the court considered the public safety of Californians” in its order. “Californians should know that the purchase, manufacture or transfer of large-capacity magazines is against the law.” Bonta said the Supreme Court was clear in its decision that Bruen “does not create a regulatory straitjacket for states and that cases should be evaluated on the text of the Second Amendment and its history and tradition of regulation,” and his office “will continue to fight for California’s authority to keep our communities safe from weapon enhancements that cause mass casualties.” The en banc panel took the case after U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez of San Diego ruled in September that the ban is unconstitutional.