Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom is asking that a court order against a “high capacity” magazine ban be lifted so the ban can take effect in California.
A “high capacity” magazine ban was set to go into effect in California on July 1 but was blocked by U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, who ruled that the ban could not survive the test of District of Columbia v. Heller (2008). Breitbart News reported:
Heller was a ruling which reaffirmed that Second Amendment rights are individual rights that the government is prohibited from infringing. Heller struck down a Washington, DC, gun ban — demonstrating that federal districts are barred from infringing gun rights—and in 2010, the McDonald v Chicago ruling affirmed that states are barred from infringing said rights as well.
The “high capacity” magazine ban in California was passed by a majority of voters via Proposition 63, but Judge Benitez noted that Heller is a reminder that the Constitution is in place to shield rights from “the tyranny of the majority.”
Newsom wants the Benitez order lifted so the ban can take effect.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Newsom said the ban will “help prevent the occurrence of high-fatality gun massacres, and … [will] reduce the bloodshed when these tragedies occur.”
Note that Newsom’s claim contains an admission that the ban will not stop “high-fatality” attacks altogether. Rather, it is yet another in a long list of California controls that is promulgated in the name of safety, only to result in diminished freedom. The loss of freedom would result from the fact that only law-abiding citizens would follow a “high capacity” magazine ban, like any gun law, and law-abiding citizens are the very people who are not misusing “high capacity” magazines to begin with.
This was not lost on Judge Benitez, who said he blocked the ban because its implementation would have meant “hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of otherwise law-abiding citizens [would] have an untenable choice: become an outlaw or dispossess one’s self of lawfully acquired property.”
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.