Weeks after issuing some surprisingly sensible Second Amendment jurisprudence, the country’s most liberal federal court is up to its old tricks again.

National Review
David French

Well, we all knew it wouldn’t last. Weeks after two different Ninth Circuit panels surprisingly upheld Second Amendment rights by blocking California’s confiscation of large-capacity magazines and Hawaii’s ban on open carry, the nation’s most progressive circuit returned to form. In a ruling earlier this month, it upheld one of the most bizarre and nonsensical gun regulations in the nation. It did so by essentially ignoring the plain language of Heller and approving a legal regime that will naturally and inevitably lead to diminishing options for citizens who seek to lawfully exercise their constitutional right to self-defense.

Here are the basic facts. California’s Unsafe Handgun Act requires new handguns sold in the state to have three key safety features. First, new guns must have an indicator that shows when a round is loaded in the weapon’s chamber. Second, new guns must have a magazine-detachment mechanism that prevents the gun from discharging when a magazine is not in it. Finally, the third provision “requires new handguns to stamp microscopically the handgun’s make, model, and serial number onto each fired shell casing.”

The Unsafe Handgun Act is just as problematic as it sounds.

For one thing, to quote the majority opinion: “According to the [plaintiffs], no handguns were available in the United States that met the microstamping requirements. The record does not indicate whether and how these figures have changed over time.” (Emphasis added.) That means California was granting consumers permission to buy guns that didn’t exist on the market.

For another, California “grandfathered in” a defined list of makes and models of handguns exempted from the law, but the list didn’t include a number of the most popular models in the United States, and gun-makers must pay California a fee to keep their weapons on it. Naturally, the list is shrinking fast: “At the end of 2013, the CDOJ’s handgun roster contained 1,273 handguns and 883 semiautomatics. As of oral argument in March 2017, it contained 744 handguns and 496 semiautomatics.” That’s a loss of hundreds of approved weapons in under four years.

Let’s be clear: This law represents slow-motion prohibition. Imagine if California passed an “Unsafe Automobile Act” that said all new cars sold had to either a) come from a roster of models approved by the state only after their manufacturers paid a fee or b) be able to fly. Each year, the approved roster shrank as carmakers either discontinued models or refused to pay the fees. And each year carmakers refused to design and build flying cars.

Well, if you’re on the Ninth Circuit, you might believe that such a law was perfectly fine, because shrinking consumer choice is irrelevant so long as the public can buy something to get you from point A to point B. It wouldn’t even matter if no manufacturer was even trying to enter the flying-car market.

After all, that’s what the Ninth Circuit panel thinks about guns. The majority in the Unsafe Handgun Act case actually wrote this: “Simply because no gun manufacturer is ‘even considering trying’ to implement the technology, it does not follow that microstamping is technologically infeasible.” It also wrote this: “Simply showing that the number of [handguns] on the roster has decreased does not tell us much about whether the availability of handguns has declined in a way relevant to the Second Amendment. It is not the number of handguns on the roster that matters, it is the impact on self-defense in the home.”

One gets the impression that the panel would be completely untroubled even if the legal market shrank to a revolver or two. After all, citizens could still buy a gun, right?

The case is a carnival funhouse of results-oriented jurisprudence. Like most hostile judges since Heller, those in the majority failed to seriously grapple with Justice Scalia’s statement that the Second Amendment protects weapons in “common use” for “lawful purposes.” Instead, their opinion endorsed banning guns in common use so long as consumers can buy other weapons that the courts — in their subjective and uninformed opinion — consider sufficient for self-defense in the home.

There is now a desperate need for the Supreme Court to step forward. Perhaps with Brett Kavanaugh confirmed, the Court will be less reluctant to take a Second Amendment case. In fact, if it can affirm two simple truths — that the right to bear arms protects open or concealed carry outside the home and that the common-use standard means what it says — it will go a long way toward settling most of the contentious gun-control cases of our times.

That would mean there would be a right to carry in all 50 states. That would mean that virtually all assault-weapons bans would fail and most bans on large-capacity magazines would have to be modified to exclude the standard-capacity magazine on a host of lawful weapons. And, yes, it would mean California’s slow-motion prohibition would be set aside. In short, it would mean that the Second Amendment would take its rightful place as an individual right with just as much meaning as each of the other individual rights in the Bill of Rights.

The Ninth Circuit has thrown down another gauntlet. It’s time for SCOTUS to respond.

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I suppose that if this carries, the criminals and gang bangers will all be turning in their non-exempted weaponry. Will cartel members be able to turn them in at the border?

Likewise affected, law enforcement and movie stars personal security, and other hypocritical rich elitists that were able to somehow get carry permits when the average citizen cannot.

There has been no better time for the Supreme Court to enter the fray and sort things out...unless we can get Ginsberg to gtfo.

Whatta surprise. Not.

Maybe this will become a good thing when it gets appealed to the Supreme Court with the latest nominee installed.

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:
Maybe this will become a good thing when it gets appealed to the Supreme Court with the latest nominee installed.

That's what I'm hoping for.

When this idiotic requirement was first announced, it was supposedly conditioned on some showing that the stamping was technically feasible.

We had quite a discussion on CalGuns over it, as I recall.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
When this idiotic requirement was first announced, it was supposedly conditioned on some showing that the stamping was technically feasible.

We had quite a discussion on CalGuns over it, as I recall.

I recall there being a patent issue and some shenanigans around it. That aspect may have been cleared up but the implementation does not yet exist. The CA legislature has once again reasoned their heads into their rectums and the 9th Circus is helping them push.

Here is the wikipedia explanation. It might be true and complete.

quote:

Microstamping legislation was passed in California AB 1471 and signed into law on October 14, 2007, but specifically exempts law enforcement.[4] The law has generated controversy.[2][3]

This technology was to be required in California starting in 2010, however, it is on hold and law enforcement is specifically exempt.[4] One group, the Calguns Foundation, paid a $555 fee to keep the patent active in order to delay implementation.[5] On May 17, 2013, California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced that micro-stamping had cleared all technological and patenting hurdles and would be required on newly sold semiautomatics, effective immediately. However, handguns already approved for sale but lacking this technology may still be sold as long as they remain on the Roster of Not Unsafe Handguns.[6]

In January 2014, the two largest handgun manufacturers in the U.S., Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger & Co., announced their intent to stop selling new semi-automatic handguns in California. They cited the microstamping law as their reason.[7]

Two trade groups, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) and the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers Institute (SAAMI), have filed a lawsuit seeking both declaratory and injunctive relief against what the groups perceive as an attempt to ban semi-automatic handguns in the state.[8] In February 2015 a federal judge upheld the microstamping requirement, ruling that it does not violate the Second Amendment.[9]

On December 1, 2016, a California Appellate Court reversed the Fresno Superior Court’s dismissal of the NSSF and the SAAMI lawsuit seeking an injunction to block enforcement of the state’s ammunition microstamping law and remanded the case back to the lower court to hear arguments.[10]

On June 28, 2018, in the case of National Shooting Sports Foundation v. California, the California Supreme Court upheld the state's microstamping law. The court wrote, "Impossibility can occasionally excuse noncompliance with a statute. But impossibility does not authorize a court to go beyond interpreting a statute and simply invalidate it." A spokesman for the NSSF said that no new models of semiautomatic handguns will be marketed in California.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microstamping

There's a reason the Ninth Circuit is referred to as the Ninth Circus. They have been reversed so many times it's laughable

they also had a landmark case last week where it was ruled that a non-citizen NOT on US soil is afforded constitutional protections...

so a Mexican national still in Mexico is protected by our constitution if he is injured while trying to break the law by entering the country illegally

thats gonna put a crimp in the efficiency of the CBP

someone needs to take these judges and give them a quick trial and then hang the bastards as an example of what should happen to stupid people

unfortunately being stupid doesn't hurt, but it should be excruciatingly painful

The ninth circuit should be disbanded. They serve no useful purpose whatsoever.