District Court Permanently Enjoins California Magazine Confiscation Law
David Kopel | Mar. 29, 2019 6:52 pm
Magazines, California, Second Amendment, Duncan V. Becerra
California's statute to confiscate all magazines over 10 rounds has been permanently enjoined by the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. The opinion was written by Judge Roger T. Benitez.
Previously, Judge Benitez had issued a preliminary injunction against the confiscation law, and the preliminary injunction was upheld by the Ninth Circuit, as discussed in this post. Today's decision follows cross-motions for summary judgment, and makes the injunction permanent. The next step in Duncan v. Becerra will be an appeal to the Ninth Circuit by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.
The 86-page opinion is the most thorough judicial analysis thus far of the magazine ban question. The opinion is founded on a careful analysis of the record, and thus provides an excellent basis for future appellate review on the merits, perhaps one day by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Covering all bases, the opinion analyzes the confiscation law under a variety of standards of review. First is the standard favored by Judge Benitez, what he calls "The Supreme Court's Simple Heller Test." In short, magazines over 10 rounds are plainly "in common use" "for lawful purposes like self-defense." Ergo, they may not be confiscated. The analysis is similar to then-Judge Kavanaugh's dissenting opinion in the 2011 Heller II case in the D.C. Circuit.
The Duncan opinion then examines the confiscation statute under various levels of "heightened scrutiny": categorical invalidation, strict scrutiny, and intermediate scrutiny. The confiscation statute is found unconstitutional under each of these standards....
If you're so inclined, following the hotlink in the headline would be the equivalent of tossing them a dog yummy.
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Originally Posted by Beetlegeuse
