U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez of San Diego released a 94-page ruling late Friday, indicating\u00a0California’s three-decade ban on assault weapons violates the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms.<\/strong><\/p>\n “Like the Swiss Army Knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment.<\/strong>\u00a0Good 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 the United States v Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939),” Benitez wrote.<\/em><\/p>\n “Yet, the State of California makes it a crime to have an AR15 type rifle,” Benitez continued. “Therefore, this Court declares the California statutes to be unconstitutional.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n On several pages of the ruling, the judge recommended the rifle should be protected under the Second Amendment for its “militia readiness.”<\/p>\n “Government is not free to impose its own new policy choices on American citizens where constitutional rights are concerned,” he added. “California may certainly conceive of a policy that a modern rifle is dangerous in the hands of a criminal, and that therefore it is good public policy to keep modern rifles out of the hands of every citizen. The Second Amendment stands as a shield from government imposition of that policy.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The office of Attorney General Rob Bonta released a statement after the ruling said it would immediately appeal the decision.<\/p>\n “Today’s decision is fundamentally flawed, and we will be appealing it,” Bonta said in a statement Friday night. “There is no sound basis in law, fact, or common sense for equating assault rifles with swiss army knives.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Firearms Policy Coalition, which supported the suit, praised the judge’s decision.<\/p>\n “We look forward to continuing this challenge at the Ninth Circuit and, should it be necessary, the Supreme Court,” the group’s president, Brandon Combs, said in a statement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The outcome angered Gov. Gavin Newsom. He released a statement that read:<\/p>\n “The fact that this judge compared the AR-15 \u2014 a weapon of war that’s used on the battlefield \u2014 to a Swiss Army Knife completely undermines the credibility of this decision and is a slap in the face to the families who’ve lost loved ones to this weapon,” he said.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Benitez left plenty of time, about 30 days, for the attorney general to appeal, but we did find\u00a0some irony in the July 4th date that the decision will take effect<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Additionally, as Jonathan Turley noted<\/a>,\u00a0the decision could have some ramifications in the pending nomination of Chipman as Director of the ATF<\/strong>. Chipman is a former ATF special agent and senior policy adviser for the gun control organization Giffords. In his hearing, Chipman declared that \u201cWith respect to the AR-15, I support a ban as it has been presented in a\u00a0Senate<\/a>\u00a0bill and supported by the president. The AR-15 is a gun I was issued on ATF\u2019s SWAT team. It\u2019s a particularly lethal weapon and regulating it as other particular lethal weapons I have advocated for.\u201d<\/p>\n Chipman was confronted on the definition of what constitutes an assault weapon.<\/strong>\u00a0He told the Senate that the ATF defines an assault rifle as \u201cany semi-automatic rifle capable of accepting a detachable magazine above the caliber of .22, which would include a .223, which is, you know largely the AR-15 round.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/2021-06-05_10-31-36.png?itok=hBfvcvLF\")
<\/picture><\/a><\/p>\n