The day was unnaturally still in the schoolroom. Someone had been shot in a hunting accident, the brother of a classmate. He was shot in the cheek, and it was serious. The man who caused the accident was crushed with remorse. The brother survived even though his face was permanently disfigured. This is what happens among experienced hunters, most gun owners are not experienced hunters. Every day 316 Americans are shot. Of those, 210 survive their gunshot injuries. But 106 Americans die, according to BradyUnited.org. Every day. Californians were stunned by the overturn of their 30-year-ban on assault weapons.
A judge decided to overturn the state’s ban on assault weapons. These guns were designed for the military, weapons to kill other human beings, then modified for American gun owners. They would not be good for hunting, because they tear the meat into pieces.
Fortunately, a federal appeals court halted that judge’s decision.
U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez ruled that this state’s three-decades-long ban on assault weapons was unconstitutional. In his ruling, Benitez made an unfortunate comparison between the Swiss Army Knife and these killing weapons.
Within days, California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) filed an appeal on Benitez’s ruling. A panel of 9th Circuit judges Barry G. Silverman, Jacqueline Nguyen, and Ryan D. Nelson issued a hold on the judges ruling, The Los Angeles Times reported.
Bonita tweeted about the ruling “We won’t stop:”
‘#BREAKING: The 9th Circuit granted our motion to stay the district court’s ruling in Miller v. Bonta. This leaves our assault weapons laws in effect while appellate proceedings continue. We won’t stop defending these life-saving laws.’
California state officials argued that five federal appeals courts had rejected constitutional challenges to ban assault weapons previously. The state was one of seven, plus Washington, D.C. to ban assault weapons. What the assault weapons supporters wanted, though, was likely. They will probably try their case at the Supreme Court, which has a conservative supermajority.
Benitez wrote in his decision:
‘This case is not about extraordinary weapons lying at the outer limits of Second Amendment protection. The banned ‘assault weapons’ are not bazookas, howitzers, or machineguns. Those arms are dangerous and solely useful for military purposes.’
The judge continued, putting “assault weapons” in quotation marks:
‘Instead, the firearms deemed ‘assault weapons’ are fairly ordinary, popular, modern rifles. This is an average case about average guns used in average ways for average purposes.’
Three White Lions podcast, Gloria Christie reads her week’s most important news/ commentary stories in the liberal online newspaper The Bipartisan Report. Gloria Christie Report her newsletter for people on the go. Written in her own unique style with a twist of humor in a briefer version of Bipartisan Report. Christie’s Mueller Report Adventures In Bite-Sizes a real-life compelling spy mystery. Find her here on Facebook.
