Press Releases

The 2-1 ruling, written by Judge Thomas Beall Griffith, a 2005 George W. Bush appointee, declared that, “At the Second Amendment’s core lies the right of responsible citizens to carry firearms for personal self-defense beyond the home, subject to longstanding restrictions…The District’s good-reason law is necessarily a total ban on exercises of that constitutional right for most D.C. residents. That’s enough to sink this law under (the 2008 U.S. Supreme Court’s Heller ruling).”

“My clients recognize that the work the Department of Justice performs directly affects the rights of millions of people,” Boylan said. “The people of California have a constitutional right to examine how and why public agencies make decisions that impact other fundamental rights, and the DOJ is no exception.”

The brief, filed in support of the temporary injunction plaintiffs believe is necessary to keep them from irreparable harm, argues that the State’s “large-capacity” magazine ban laws not only violate Second Amendment rights, but also violate the Constitution’s guarantee of due process, prohibition against government taking of private property without just compensation, and are unconstitutionally vague.

Combs said some dealers, concerned they could lose their license or face criminal charges if they unwittingly facilitate an illegal sale, have resorted to obtaining signed declarations promising no laws are being broken from anyone who wants to transfer an off-roster gun.

The plaintiffs believe that the State’s ban violates their constitutional rights, including their fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms protected under the Second Amendment, because magazines are “an intrinsic part of all semi-automatic firearms” and “are not merely individual pieces of personal property, but rather, are intrinsic and inherent constitutionally-protected parts of constitutionally-protected firearms.”

By refusing to correct the panel’s decision here, the Ninth Circuit has dared the Supreme Court to overturn them or bind tens of millions of law-abiding people to the tyrannies imposed on them and their right to keep and bear arms by the State of California and other similarly-hostile governments.