(Headline USA) A federal judge struck down California’s assault-weapons ban this week as unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez ruled on Thursday that the ban, implemented three decades ago, violates the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
“The State of California posits that its ‘assault weapon’ ban, the law challenged here, promotes an important public interest of disarming some mass shooters even though it makes criminals of law-abiding residents who insist on acquiring these firearms for self-defense,” Benitez wrote. “Nevertheless, more than that is required to uphold a ban.”
Benitez added: “California’s answer to the criminal misuse of a few is to disarm its many good residents. That knee-jerk reaction is constitutionally untenable, just as it was 250 years ago.”
This is the second time he’s struck down the law. He made a similar ruling in 2021, calling the assault weapons ban a “failed experiment.”
That decision was ultimately abandoned by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
California officials announced after Benitez’s decision that they planned to appeal to the Ninth Circuit again. But this time, new precedent from the Supreme Court upholding Second Amendment rights might guarantee that Benitez’s decision sticks.
Under the Supreme Court decision, firearm restrictions must be “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition” to comply with Second Amendment protections.
Still, the decision was a “direct insult to every victim of a mass shooting and their families,” Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom complained.
“Californians’ elected representatives decided almost 35 years ago that weapons of war have no place in our communities,” he said in a statement. “Today, Judge Benitez decided that he knows better, public safety be damned.”
Benitez has repeatedly struck down California’s gun control policies. Just last month, he ruled that the state cannot ban gun owners from having detachable magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, again citing the Supreme Court.
