Ninth Circuit En Banc Panel: CA can Ban Magazines over 10 Rounds

AmmoLand ^ | Decomber 1, 2021 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed the three-judge panel decision in Duncan v. Becerra, the ban on magazines that hold over 10 rounds. The opinion was released on November 30, 2021.

Update: The case nomenclature has changed from Duncan v. Becerra to Duncan v. Bonta, because of the change in the California Attorney General.

At the end of March, in 2019, Judge Roger T. Benitez wrote a well-reasoned opinion that found the California ban on magazines of over 10 rounds to be an unconstitutional infringement on the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.  The case was appealed to a three-judge panel. The panel, in a split decision, upheld Judge Benitez’s opinion, on August 14, 2020.

As has become common in cases involving the Second Amendment in the Ninth Circuit, the case was then asked to be heard by an en bank panel of the Ninth Circuit. The en banc panel issued its opinion on November 30, 2021. The en banc panel reversed the decision of Judge Benitez at the Circuit court and of the three-judge pane. They found a ban on magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds to be an acceptably small infringement on the core Second Amendment right. From the decision Page 31-32:

Defendant does not dispute that California’s ban on large-capacity magazines implicates, at least in some measure, the core Second Amendment right of self-defense in the home. See, e.g., Pena, 898 F.3d at 977 (assuming without deciding that firearm regulations implicate the core right); see also Worman, 922 F.3d at 30, 36 (assuming without deciding that Massachusetts’ ban on large-capacity magazines implicates the core right); Heller II, 670 F.3d at 332

[Do_Tar]

> Yeah, cause nobody can get killed with a gun that only holds 11 rounds.

Heck, Alec Baldwhine can do it with an unloaded six shooter.

[Political Junkie Too]

the core Second Amendment right of self-defense in the home

I don't recall seeing "in the home" in the second amendment.

Perhaps the 9th circuit was confusing it with the third or fourth amendments?

The "core" of the second amendment is that the militia is necessary for the security of a free state. That is a concept that the 9th circuit has been historically hostile towards.

-PJ

[Do_Tar]

I may have found a loophole!