Renna v Becerra (new 2021 CA roster case)

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As you'll recall, SCOTUS declined to hear Pena last summer (Pena was won at the original CA9 panel and then overturned en banc, like other gun cases that lands there). Pena was a case against the California handgun roster. No new handguns have been added to the roster since 2013 when microstamping was determined to be feasible by Harris (the new VP). Ahnuld signed the original roster into law. California has recently changed the microstamping requirement, reducing the requirement from a stamp in two locations to just one. Great! It also requires removal of 3 handguns currently on the roster for any 1 handgun added. Not great!

Anywho, this new case is in a post-Pena landscape and argues hard on the Heller standard of common use. The state has already filed to dismiss. The plaintiff has said "nope." We'll see what happens.

Here's a link to their motion for anybody that would like to see how Heller should be applied to "common sense" gun control.
https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov ... 8.13.0.pdf

And a link to the state's motion, if you'd like to read up on obfuscation and milquetoast.
https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov ... 8.12.0.pdf

I wanted to add, the state relies on "Rather, the UHA [Unsafe Handgun Act] merely prohibits the manufacture or commercial sale of handguns that do not meet certain safety requirements" as the justification of the roster not being a ban. There is never any proof that microstamping makes a handgun more safe. I cannot imagine how a tiny number stamped on a case would make a handgun more safe. If anything, adding complexity would make it less so. So, the state is arguing that the roster makes guns more safe while. So why does LEO get such unsafe handguns? And shouldn't LEO, if anyone, be required to have microstamping to accurately account for use? And why is the state so against modern safer models of handgun? The ability to hit what you're aiming at is pretty important to handgun safety. There have been numerous models of handguns designed to allow people with less strength to hit what their aiming at (all those .380 semi auto "EZ" types) that are not allowed on the roster. So is it really about saftey? :no:

Re: Renna v Becerra (new 2021 CA roster case)

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Some interesting things, it was filed in the Southern District of CA and in the past it would have been assigned to Judge Roger Benitez. This time it wasn't assigned to Benitez, but to Judge Dana Makoto Sabraw who was apptd to the federal bench by George W Bush. And Chuck Michel's law firm isn't representing the plaintiffs like they do with CRPA lawsuits, this is being pushed by the Firearms Policy Coalition.
Summary: Federal 2A and 14A lawsuit challenging California’s recently-expanded Roster Handgun Ban, which requires the removal of three firearms for every one added, as well as the ban on self-manufacturing handguns not on DOJ's Roster

Plaintiffs: Lana Rae Renna, Danielle Jaymes, Hannah Spousta, Laura Schwartz, Michael Schwartz, Robert Macomber, Clint Freeman, Richard Bailey, John Matthew Klier, Justin Smith, John Phillips, PWGG, L.P., Cheryl Prince, Darin Prince, North County Shooting Center, Inc., Ryan Peterson, Gunfighter Tactical, LLC, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), San Diego County Gun Owners PAC (SDCGO), Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), and Second Amendment Foundation (SAF)

Defendants: California Attorney General Xavier Becerra; DOJ Bureau of Firearms Director Luis Lopez

Litigation Counsel: Raymond DiGuiseppe; Michael Sousa
https://www.firearmspolicy.org/renna


This is the original filing on 11/10/2020, the link above is to the plaintiff's response to the CA AG's brief.
https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov ... 78.1.0.pdf
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Renna v Becerra (new 2021 CA roster case)

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Missed this April 26, 2021 ruling from Chief District Judge Sabraw of the Southern District of CA. Last November the CA AG complained that Judge Roger Benitez was assigned all the firearms cases which is a rule in that district court.
A federal judge found California’s new handgun law provision requiring the removal of three grandfathered handguns for every new handgun added to its list of guns that can be sold in the state “substantially infringes” Californians’ ability to purchase handguns for self-defense.

U.S. District Chief Judge Dana Sabraw found the “three-to-one” provision of California’s Unsafe Handgun Act, which went into effect Jan. 1, “imposes a greater restriction on the pool of handguns available for sale in California” and may violate the Second Amendment.

“The court is not persuaded there is a ‘reasonable fit’ between the state’s asserted objective and the three-for-one provision,” Sabraw, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote.

“Defendants offer no justification for why the statute requires the removal of three handguns for each new handgun added, instead of, for instance, a proportional one-to-one.”

Sabraw’s ruling Friday is the first to come down since Assembly Bill 2847 took effect.

Gun owner Lana Rae Renna, leading a group of individual gun owners and lobbying groups including the Second Amendment Foundation, San Diego County Gun Owners PAC and Firearms Policy Coalition, sued the state this past November alleging the new provision violates their constitutional rights.

But it is not the first time the gun lobby has challenged California’s Unsafe Handgun Act, which regulates the sale of firearms by maintaining a roster of handguns deemed “not unsafe” based on certain requirements and therefore saleable in the Golden State.

To be deemed “not unsafe” handguns sold in California must have certain features. Semiautomatic pistols, for example, must have a chamber load indicator, magazine detachment mechanism and microstamping technology that places identifying information fired shell casings to assist law enforcement.

The requirements were implemented in 2007 to limit accidental discharges.

In 2018, the Ninth Circuit found the law did not infringe gun owner’s Second Amendment rights, as the UHA regulates commercial sales and not possession of a handgun.

But since that case did not address the issue of removal of handguns from the state’s roster and the enactment of AB 2847 occurred after the Ninth Circuit’s decision, Sabraw found the current lawsuit is not barred by the previous decision.

The number of handguns on the roster which can legally be purchased in California has shrunk significantly since the UHA added the microstamping requirement in 2013.

At the end of 2013, there were 1,273 makes and models of approved handguns on California’s roster. By Nov. 8, 2020, more than 400 handguns had been removed.

Three days after AB 2847 went into effect, there were 779 handguns on the state’s roster according to the first amended complaint.

The California Attorney General’s Office did not respond to an inquiry regarding the current number of handguns included on the roster.

In his 15-page order April 23, Sabraw found the gun owners and industry groups sufficiently pleaded the UHA substantially impacts their Second Amendment rights since the roster rule “limits the ability of law-abiding citizens to acquire firearms, which is critical to ensuring the Second Amendment right to keep arms.”

“Because plaintiffs have alleged the number of handguns available for purchase on the roster has steadily declined and will continue to decline, plaintiffs sufficiently demonstrate the UHA burdens protected conduct by substantially infringing plaintiffs’ ability to acquire firearms for self-defense,” Sabraw wrote.

The chief judge also found the state’s argument that AB 2847 satisfies the intermediate scrutiny requirement to find firearms laws are constitutionally consistent with the Second Amendment didn’t pass muster.

California argued the three-for-one provision furthers public safety by removing grandfathered handgun models when new models complying with applicable features are added to the state’s roster, facilitating “a transition over time toward full compliance.”

But Sabraw found there may not be a “reasonable fit” between the state’s safety goals and the three-for-one provision.

“The roster is already transitioning toward the compliance that defendants claim as their objective. As plaintiffs allege, application of the three-for-one provision will accelerate this trend further, rendering the number of handguns available for purchase unacceptably small,” Sabraw wrote.

The gun owners and organizations are represented by Raymond DiGuiseppe of Southport, North Carolina, and Michael Sousa of San Diego.

Neither the Attorney General’s Office nor the attorneys for the gun owners returned phone and email requests for comment by press time.
https://www.courthousenews.com/gun-lobb ... -advances/

Ruling
https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-conte ... dORDER.pdf
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Renna v Becerra (new 2021 CA roster case)

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CDFingers wrote: Sat Jun 05, 2021 11:12 am "Substantially infringes": Oh, ya think?

It will be fun to watch both these move up to the SCOTUS. I'm not optimistic, but I'm amused.

CDFingers

I wish this one would get to SCOTUS because I'd like to see the whole Roster thrown out along with microstamping. CA could still do testing and have a band or sticker on the gun showing it met CA safe testing, but guns without it could still be sold. It all adds to California's bureaucracy without actually reducing crime. And it just antagonizes law abiding gun owners who do vote.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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