Our New York and Westchester county criminal defense attorneys who defend gun possession charges, know that the liberal states, such as New York and California, have overly restrictive gun laws compared to the rest of the Country. Although New York Criminal Court Judges bend over backwards to justify the gun laws, and often simply ignore the Second Amendment, a newly active Federal Judiciary is starting to take closer look at these gun laws and analyze whether they can withstand Constitutional scrutiny under the Second Amendment. A federal judge has overturned California´s three-decade-old ban on assault weapons, ruling that it violates the constitutional right to bear arms.
District Judge Roger Benitez handed down the ruling in San Diego on Thursday Said that the Golden State’s 1989 ban on assault rifles was ‘unconstitutional’. The gun rights possessoin case was brought against California AG by three men and San Diego gun club. There is also a pending case is also seeking to have minimum age to buy a gun lowered
Currently, no-one under the age of 21 can buy a gun in California.
Plaintiffs say that’s discriminatory, and want minimum age lowered to 18 and our New York gun rights lawyers agree, because, it artificially discriminates against adults, and frankly, if you are old enough to be drafted into the military, you are old enought to be able to possess a weapon.
U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez of San Diego ruled that the state´s definition of illegal military-style rifles unlawfully deprives law-abiding Californians of weapons commonly allowed in most other states. He handed down the two page ruling in response to a lawsuit filed against the State of California.
The plaintiffs successfully argued that California’s use of the term ‘assault weapons’ was ‘a politically-concocted pejorative term designed to suggest that there is an inherently unlawful or illegitimate basis for owning otherwise common firearms protected by the Second Amendment.’ They added that California banned guns which should have been lawful to own by designating them assault weapons using faulty rationales, such as a rifle’s ammunition capacity.
Arguing the case before ruling, the plaintiffs’ attorney said: ‘The government cannot ban the constitutionally-protected firearms at issue in this case. We look forward to proving that the state’s statutes, policies, and practices at issue in this case are both unconstitutional and irrational.’
The lawsuit went on reference Judge Benitez’s earlier ruling that California’s ban on high-capacity magazines was unconstitutional. Benitez later stayed his own order.
California first restricted assault weapons in 1989, with multiple updates to the law since then.
California´s attorney general argued that assault weapons as defined by the law are more dangerous than other firearms and are disproportionately used in crimes and mass shootings.
The Golden State could see gun laws relaxed even more from next month.
They say California’s ban on anyone under the age of 21 owning guns is age-discrminiation, and infringes on the rights of law-abiding young adults.
That suit wants the law changed so that people aged 18 and over can buy a gun.
This ruling if upheld, along with the striking down of the District of Columbia law and the recent New York City laws, pave the way for a challenge to New York’s gun laws, which make it a crime to merely possess a firearm, even in a person’s own home.
