A gun-rights organization is calling on the Supreme Court of the United States to hear the case involving California’s punitive firearm magazine capacity limit.
State law in the Golden State dictates that magazines cannot hold more than 10 rounds. And the case Duncan v. Bonta, which challenges that law restriction, was upheld this spring by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that magazines are simply “accessories,” not “arms.”
On September 12, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, urging the court to grant certiorari in the case. Joining the SAF in the filing were the Second Amendment Law Center and Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus.
“The Ninth Circuit’s en banc ruling defies the Supreme Court’s precedents in Heller, Bruen, and Rahimi by wrongly concluding that magazines that hold more than 10 rounds are not ‘arms’ under the Second Amendment’s plain text,” Kostas Moros, SAF director of legal research and education, said in a news release announcing the action. “The 9th Circuit based its historical analysis on overly generalized historical analogues like bowie knife restrictions, while ignoring closer 19th-century examples like revolvers and repeating rifles, which were never restricted. We hope the Supreme Court intervenes to protect the rights of millions of law-abiding gun owners facing dispossession or worse.”
As the SAF brief explains, magazines are “arms” under the plain text of the Second Amendment as essential components of modern firearms that facilitate armed self-defense. Consequently, to regulate them, the government must demonstrate a historical tradition of such restrictions, which does not exist.
“Enough is enough,” the brief states. “This petition should be granted, as this Court must not stand idly by while the Ninth Circuit ‘butcher[s] the Second Amendment and give[s] a judicial middle finger to [this Court].’ If this Court is not inclined to grant certiorari in this matter and denies the petition, immediate harm would result to countless California gun owners who possess the magazines at issue, because after the Ninth Circuit’s mandate issues, those magazines would be illegal to possess.”
As the brief further pointed out, the 9th Circuit Court is famous for trashing Second Amendment rights in its rulings.
“It’s hard not to imagine citizens simply intent on exercising their rights, losing confidence in the system itself in the face of the Ninth Circuit’s track record,” the brief stated. “This is not a ‘win some, lose some’ scenario for Second Amendment litigants like Amici. Instead, they always lose in the Ninth Circuit, and even if they do win, that court consistently reverses their wins en banc.”
In late August, the National Rifle Association also petitioned SCOTUS to hear Duncan v. Bonta.
“Tens of millions of Americans lawfully own hundreds of millions of the magazines that California bans,” said Doug Hamlin, NRA executive vice president. “The Supreme Court should take this case to vindicate the rights of Californians and reaffirm that the Second Amendment prohibits the government from banning common arms.”
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