The order by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel came in response to a challenge to the ruling filed earlier this month by the state.
“This leaves our assault weapons laws in effect while appellate proceedings continue,” state Attorney General Rob Bonta wrote on his Twitter account in response to the action. “We won’t stop defending these life-saving laws.”
Life saving is a stretch… How is California on the national mass shooting scale right now? 2nd?
In early June, U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez issued a 94-page ruling striking down the state’s assault weapons ban.
One that has been a long time coming. We knew it would be challenged and it was likely the 9th Circuit would do as they have done and put it into a pending status the way the attacked the challenges to the de facto handgun ban, magazine limit, and now the ‘assault weapon’ ban.
“Like the Swiss Army knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment,” Benitez wrote in the ruling. “Good 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 and United States v. Miller.”
Bonta decried that comparison, saying, “Equating firearms that have been used in many of the deadliest mass shootings in this country with Swiss Army knives has no basis in law or fact. The ban on assault weapons will not put an end to all gun violence, but it is one important tool the state has to protect the safety of Californians while also respecting the rights of law-abiding residents who choose to possess firearms.”
Except that is doesn’t do that. That claim is demonstrably false, especially if we are using mass shootings as the safety metric.
Another report, from Greensboro News & Record, put it thus,
‘Benitez devotes a couple of pages to breathless descriptions of six cases in which homeowners used AR-15s to thwart home invasions, but he doesn’t acknowledge that this is anecdotal evidence, which should be of questionable standing in legal analysis.’
It would be, but if we are objectively looking at facts the follow on paragraph puts lie to the perspective.
‘The judge also doesn’t note that, according to FBI homicide data, for every “justifiable” gun homicide in 2012, there were 34 criminal homicides, 78 suicides and two accidental gun deaths.’
I do like that they picked 2012, a decade ago, to use as the comparative year. I’m guessing that year had the highest numbers they could use comparatively to the justifiable homicides, and not defensive gun uses.
Read the entire ABC piece at the link below. It sounds like they’re grasping at straws while trying to be confident.
Read on [here] from the article source