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The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has blocked a federal judge's controversial ruling that overturned California's longtime ban on assault weapons, in which he likened the AR-15 to a Swiss Army knife. In an order Monday, a three-judge panel on the federal appeals court issued a stay of US District Judge Roger Benitez's order earlier this month that overturned California's three-decade old assault weapons ban. The state's current assault weapons laws will remain in effect while further proceedings continue, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement on Twitter.

The 9th Circuit, acting on a June 10 appeal filed by Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, put Benitez’s ruling on hold pending a full-blown decision. “This leaves our assault weapons laws in effect while appellate proceedings continue,” Bonta said said in a tweet. “We won’t stop defending these life-saving laws.” The 9th Circuit judges on the panel issuing the stay were Barry G. Silverman, a Clinton appointee, Jacqueline Nguyen, an Obama appointee and Ryan D. Nelson, a Trump appointee. Benitez, appointed by former President George W. Bush, said the weapons ban unconstitutionally infringed on the rights of California gun owners and...

9th CIRCUIT COWBOY is the story of Judge Harry Pregerson who, for almost half a century, served on California’s famously liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and was known for placing his personal scruples over what he discounted as abstract legalities. “I looked upon being a judge,” he said, “as a chance to help as many people as I could through the law.” Growing up during the Depression in diverse East Los Angeles, Harry enlisted in the Marines in World War II and served in the Pacific. In the bloody Battle for Okinawa, he received a field commission to lieutenant...

California officials are vowing to fight back after a federal judge overturned the state’s 30-year-old ban on assault weapons. In ruling the ban unconstitutional, U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez compared the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle to a Swiss Army knife, calling it “good for both home and battle.”Benitez, of the Southern District of California, issued a permanent injunction against the law’s enforcement but stayed it for 30 days to give the state a chance to appeal. California is one of seven states, plus Washington, D.C, that ban assault weapons, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

A federal judge overturned California's 32-year-old ban on so-called assault-style weapons on Friday, describing it as a "failed experiment" and prompting scathing criticism from the state's governor and attorney general. California has prohibited the sale of the weapons since 1989. The ban was challenged in a 2019 lawsuit against California's attorney general by plaintiffs including James Miller, a state resident, and the San Diego County Gun Owners, a political action committee. "This case is about what should be a muscular constitutional right and whether a state can force a gun policy choice that impinges on that right with a 30-year-old...

A federal judge has struck down California’s controversial “assault weapons” ban, ruling late on Friday that the move is "unconstitutional." “This case is not about extraordinary weapons lying at the outer limits of Second Amendment protection,” Judge Roger T. Benitez of the Southern District of California wrote.

A federal judge in San Diego on Friday overturned California’s three-decade ban on assault weapons, saying it violates the Second Amendment."Under no level of heightened scrutiny can the law survive," U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez said before issuing a permanent injunction that takes effect in 30 days. Benitez argued the state’s definition of illegal military-style rifles bans firearms allowed in other states, depriving California gun owners of their rights.He compared the AR-15 rifle to a Swiss Army knife, saying it’s "a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment. Good for both home and battle."

A federal judge has overturned California´s three-decade-old ban on assault weapons, ruling that it violates the constitutional right to bear arms. U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez of San Diego ruled Friday that the state´s definition of illegal military-style rifles unlawfully deprives law-abiding Californians of weapons commonly allowed in most other states. He handed down the two page ruling in response to a lawsuit filed against the State of California by James Miller, Patrick Russ, Ryan Peterson and the the San Diego County Gun Owners Political Action Committee. The plaintiffs successfully argued that California's use of the term 'assault weapons' was...

SAN DIEGO, CA (June 4, 2021) — Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced that Judge Roger T. Benitez of the Southern District of California has issued an opinion in Miller v. Bonta (previously Miller v. Becerra), holding that California’s tyrannical ban on so-called “assault weapons” is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. The opinion, along with other filings in this case, can be viewed at AssaultWeaponLawsuit.com. In 2019, FPC developed and filed Miller v. Becerra, a federal Second Amendment challenge to California’s Assault Weapons Control Act (AWCA) ban on common semiautomatic arms with certain characteristics, including those with ammunition magazines that...

Like the Swiss Army Knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment. Good for both home and battle, the AR-15 is the kind of versatile gun that lies at the intersection of the kinds of firearms protected under District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) and United States v Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939). Yet, the State of California makes it a crime to have an AR- 15 type rifle. Therefore, this Court declares the California statutes to be unconstitutional. Plaintiffs challenge a net of interlocking statutes which impose...

The Supreme Court on Tuesday shut down an attempt to treat the testimony of asylum-seekers as credible, siding with the federal government against people seeking refuge in the country. The court unanimously found that a previous ruling from the California-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit had incorrectly ruled that in immigration cases, noncitizens' testimonies must be treated as credible or true. The court vacated the 9th Circuit's decision and sent it back to lower courts for further consideration... ...In both cases, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote, the 9th Circuit was wrong to interfere because of a technical question....

I know it’s probably not a surprise, but this new administration is soft on border security when it comes to illegal immigrants and drugs. Some of us hoped that common sense might prevail, but instead we have witnessed a surge at the southern border with people trying to enter the country illegally because of Biden’s soft message on immigration. We are seeing something similar with regard to the import of illegal opioids using the regular mails. Right now, the Biden Administration is not enforcing existing law aggressively enough to stop overseas drug cartels from using the international postal system to...

PHILADELPHIA - In a cramped house with mice in the kitchen and music booming from cars outside, Keldy Mabel Gonzales Brebe lays bare her three-year journey from Honduras to the United States and all that lies ahead to adapt to life as an immigrant. She fled the Central American nation with her family and a price on her head to seek asylum at the U.S. border. Instead, U.S. officials separated her from her children, jailed and deported her under President Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy to prosecute adults entering the country illegally. While the boys were allowed to live with relatives in...

Overturning a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that a previously deported illegal alien isn’t excused on appeal from the legal requirement of demonstrating that he had previously exhausted all administrative remedies and was improperly deprived of judicial review. The high court’s opinion in the case, United States v. Palomar-Santiago, court file 20-437, was written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Refugio Palomar-Santiago, a Mexican national, was granted permanent resident status in 1990. He lost that status in 1991 following a driving under the influence (DUI) conviction in California state court, which, at the time, was deemed...

Last month, the city and county of Los Angeles filed an appeal of a sweeping injunction from U.S. District Judge David O. Carter ordering urgent action to get people off skid row. In their appeal to the 9th Circuit, the city and county asked for the deadlines to be suspended while their appeal is heard. The appellate court didn’t grant that request outright. Instead, the panel of judges paused the order until June 15 and asked for more information on how granting the stay pending appeal sought by the city and county might affect the case before Carter.

Appeals court panel says interstate haulers are not exempt from AB 5 law. Interstate truckers could soon come under California’s highly restrictive independent contractor law because of a recent federal appeals court decision. A three-judge panel for the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 that a federal law called the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA) does not preclude application of the state’s AB 5 contractor law to trucking companies operating in interstate commerce. In early 2020, before the new law went into effect, a federal district court judge granted an injunction barring the state from enforcing it...

Over a conservative judge’s angry dissent, a federal appeals court refused Thursday to let a group of Republican-led states try to revive a Trump administration rule that denied legal status and work permits to noncitizens who accept public benefits, such as food stamps and Medicaid.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in an en banc panel, has found there is no “Right to Bear Arms” in the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. The majority opinion was written by Judge Bybee. The case is the long-delayed Young v. State of Hawaii. It will undoubtedly be appealed to the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS). Whether SCOTUS will grant a writ of Certiorari is unknown at this time. SCOTUS has refused to grant a hearing to nearly all Second Amendment cases for over a decade.On 15 June, of 2020, SCOTUS refused to hear ten pending Second...

In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, (9th Cir., March 18, 2021), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Washington state school board's dismissal of a high school football coach who insisted on prominently praying at the 50-yard line immediately after football games. The long-running high-profile case was before the 9th Circuit for the second time. (See prior posting.) The court issued a Summary of its decision along with the opinion, saying in part: The panel held that the record before it and binding Supreme Court precedent compelled the conclusion that the District would have violated the Establishment Clause...

On Wednesday, an en banc panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that the second amendment right to keep and bear arms does not citizens include the right to carry a firearm, either openly or concealed, in public .The court issued the ruling in the case of George Young Jr. V Hawaii, a lawsuit challenging a Hawaii firearm licensing law, which states residents seeking license to openly carry a firearm in public must demonstrate “the urgency or the need” to carry a firearm, must be of good moral character, and must be “engaged in the...