The 2001 law, known as the Unsafe Handgun Act, requires new semiautomatic handguns to have an indicator showing when there is a round in the chamber and a mechanism to prevent firing when the magazine is not fully inserted, both meant to prevent accidental discharge. It also requires that they stamp a serial number onto bullets they fire, known as microstamping.
A previous challenge to the law was rejected by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2018. But the new lawsuit was filed less than six weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that gun control measures must be consistent with the nation's historical tradition of gun control regulation.
A previous challenge to the law was rejected by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2018. But the new lawsuit was filed less than six weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that gun control measures must be consistent with the nation's historical tradition of gun control regulation.
The plaintiffs said the law failed that test and severely restricted Californians' right to own guns, because no new guns are being manufactured that comply with the requirements. That means buyers in the state are limited to models from before 2013, when the law fully took effect, the plaintiffs said.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/judge- ... 023-03-20/
This strikes down microstamping and puts a dent in the Roster. Bonta will appeal to the 9th Circuit so we'll see how they rule after Bruen.
From Reload:
California passed the Unsafe Handgun Act (UHA) in 2001. It initially barred the sale of any new pistol models that didn’t include a loaded chamber indicator or magazine disconnect safety. However, in 2013 the state expanded the requirements to include so-called microstamping technology. In theory, microstamping would enable a gun to leave identifiable marks on every spent casing with the goal of helping police solve crimes. However, there has never been a production gun in the world that has implemented the theoretical technology.
The practical effect of adding the requirement, which a handful of other states are now considering implementing as well, was a complete ban on the sale of all handgun models created after 2013. Outside of police officers, who are not subject to the handgun roster restrictions despite California deeming guns outside of it “unsafe,” Californians have been mostly limited to buying pistols first introduced to the market more than 15 years ago. “These regulations are having a devastating impact on Californians’ ability to acquire and use new, state-of-the-art handguns,” Judge Cormac wrote. “Since 2007, when the [loaded chamber indicator] and [magazine disconnect safety] requirements were introduced, very few new handguns have been introduced for sale in California with those features. Since 2013, when the microstamping requirement was introduced, not a single new semiautomatic handgun has been approved for sale in California.”
Plaintiffs argued the handgun restrictions infringe on their Second Amendment rights and are unlike any regulation from the founding era, which is the key measure for constitutionality under Bruen. California argued the restrictions don’t directly implicate the Second Amendment because they don’t completely ban the ownership of all handguns, just those it considers “unsafe.” Judge Cormac found Bruen doesn’t require a total ban for a gun regulation to impact gun rights. He further rejected attempts to justify the restrictions by balancing their effect on gun owners with the state’s claims they prevent accidental shootings or help law enforcement.
“The Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear arms for self defense,” Judge Cormac said. “That right is so fundamental that to regulate conduct covered by the Second Amendment’s plain text, the government must show more than that the regulation promotes an important interest like reducing accidental discharges or solving crime. Rather, to be constitutional, regulations of Second Amendment rights must be ‘consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.'”
California argued its law had several historical analogues implementing gun restrictions aimed at preventing accidents or tracking firearms that date back to the founding era. The first was “proving” laws that required inspectors to verify, or “prove,” that barrels were adequately constructed. The second dealt with regulations on storing gunpowder as a precaution against accidental fires. It also cited a collection of historical rules surrounding where and how guns could be sold as evidence for a tradition of serial numbers or other tracking marks.
Judge Cormac was unconvinced by the examples California cited. He said proving laws were meant to ensure a gun operated as advertised, not require the maker to implement new safety features, and he said the gunpowder regulations were about preventing accidental building fires through poor storage rather than preventing negligent gunshots by adding new mechanisms to the firearms. Additionally, he argued the microstamping technology was not similar to serial numbering or other gun sales regulations because it imposed a much heavier burden on gun makers, one he argued was “simply not commercially available or even feasible to implement on a mass scale.”
Ultimately, he ruled the “how and why these regulations burden a law-abiding citizen’s right to armed self-defense are too different to pass constitutional muster.” “Because enforcing those requirements implicates the plain text of the Second Amendment, and the government fails to point to any well-established historical analogues that are consistent with them, those requirements are unconstitutional and their enforcement must be preliminarily enjoined,” he ruled.
https://thereload.com/federal-judge-blo ... trictions/
Boland vs Bonta
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... 60.0_1.pdf
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan