Free Republic

It’s not the first time that U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez has determined that California’s ban on “large capacity” magazines violates the Second Amendment, but hopefully this time the decision will stick. Benitez issued his first ruling before the Bruen decision was released last year, but the Ninth pulled its typical move and overruled him in an en banc review, sending the case to the Supreme Court. After Bruen, the Supreme Court granted cert and remanded the case back to the Ninth Circuit with instructions to reconsider in light of the text, history, and tradition test it laid out, but...

On July 18th, 2023, Judge Roger T. Benitez heard statements from opposing attorneys on the former Rhode v Becerra, now Rhode v. Bonta lawsuit. There were no objections to combining the hearing on the preliminary injunction with the trial on the merits. This case was vacated by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and sent back to Judge Benitez because of the Bruen decision at the Supreme Court. The Rhodes v Bonta case deals with the Draconian restrictions which California enacted on the sale of ammunition within the state and on the importation of ammunition from other states into California....

Judge Benitez found California’s ban on magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition to be unconstitutional on its face. On March 29, 2017, Judge Benitez issued an injunction preventing the enforcement of the ban. In the week that followed, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of magazines were sold to California residents who had been deprived of their Second Amendment rights. The week of March 29, 2017, to April 5, 2017, has become known as Freedom week.The name of the case changed as the name of the California AG changed.Subsequent court actions reversed the injunction, upheld Judge Benitez’s opinion,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Ninth Circuit District Judge Delivers Another Superbly Written Court Order, iStock-1055138108 On 23 September 2020, Judge Roger T. Benitez issued another impressive order in a case involving the Second Amendment. A number of California residents, firearm businesses, special interest groups, foundations, and a political action committee have organized to sue California AG Xavier Becerra et al, to challenge the constitutionality of California's complex net of regulations for the ownership and use of various firearms the state deems to be “assault weapons”. The lawsuit has been winding its way through the federal legal system in the Ninth Circuit. In Miller v....

Early 20th Century police batons in Edingburg Police Centre Museum by Kim Traynor, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons One of the very few Second Amendment cases heard by the Supreme Court in the last decade was Caetano v. Massachusettes, decided March 21, 2016. The Court has held that “the Second Amendment ex-tends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding,” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 582 (2008), and that this “Second Amendment right is fully applicable to the States,” McDonald v....

On 28 August 2020, Attorney General Becerra of California petitioned the Ninth Circuit to review the case of Duncan v. Becerra. The review would be of the three-judge panel which held the California ban on magazines that hold over 10 rounds of ammunition to be unconstitutional. From the Petition for En Banc: 1 INTRODUCTION AND RULE 35 STATEMENTCalifornia respectfully petitions for rehearing en banc of the panel’s decision, which invalidates a state law restricting large-capacity magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition (LCMs). California voters adopted the current LCM law in response to a spate of mass...

I have marveled over the years at the kind of fear and anger the Christian Faith generates in some sectors of our society. Even the suggestion that there might a a small nativity scene in a park, or Christmas tree near City Hall, or a display of the Ten Commandments often elicits a hew and cry and brings forth camera crews and elicits lawsuits. But the venom seems especially reserved  for symbols of the Christian faith in particular and to some extent the wider Judeo-Christian heritage. A reference from the Q’ran in school is seen by many of this same...