Small Temporary Sanity Outbreak in California

A California federal judge temporarily blocked a California law that would require destruction of  normal capacity magazines, according to the AP.

The judge ruled that the ban approved by the Legislature and voters last year takes away gun owners’ Second Amendment rights and amounts to the government taking people’s private property without compensation.

California law has prohibited buying or selling the magazines since 2000, but until now allowed those who had them to keep them.

“Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of otherwise law-abiding citizens will have an untenable choice: become an outlaw or dispossess one’s self of lawfully acquired property,” San Diego-based U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez wrote.

He issued a preliminary injunction blocking the law from taking effect while he considers the underlying lawsuit filed by the National Rifle Association-affiliated California Rifle & Pistol Association.

It was, unfortunately but not unexpectedly, a very small incidence of temporary sanity.  A Sacramento-based judge rejected a similar challenge by several other gun owners’ rights groups.

It seems to me, and I'm not a lawyer, that California has gone over the Rubicon on this one.  It's one thing to ban the sale of these magazines, and that's plenty bad.  It's another to require they be turned over to the state with no compensation whatsoever.  The state isn't saying, "turn in your 30 round AR magazine and we'll give you three 10 rounders"!  They're saying "send them out of state to get them modified to hold no more than 10 rounds, destroy them yourself, or turn them into law enforcement agencies to melt down." That's backed up by the threat that possession can bring $100 fines or up to a year in jail.

Considering how broke the state is, they couldn't possibly buy the magazines from California gun owners, so cry as they might, they're depriving people of use and ownership of legally obtained property, an ex post facto prohibition.  It doesn't matter that this was a resolution passed by California voters.  

Voters agreed in November when they approved Proposition 63, a measure that toughened the penalties by allowing violators to be fined or jailed.

[Judge] Benitez said he was mindful of voters’ approval and government’s legitimate interest in protecting the public but added that the “Constitution is a shield from the tyranny of the majority.”

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra disagreed but didn't openly defy Judge Benitez, saying he takes the side of the state.  I strongly suspect he takes the side of the state when he personally agrees with it. 

“I will defend the will of California voters because we cannot continue to lose innocent lives due to gun violence.”

In which AG Becerra scores high on the moron index for thinking passing a law like this can ever have any effect on so-called “gun violence.”

Meanwhile, in the saner portions of the state away from the coasts, county sheriffs seem to have a bit better perspective.

 Law enforcement officers, such as Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko, told the Sacramento Bee that he looks negatively at this law and that he doesn’t expect anyone to turn in their magazines, nor will he be sending his deputies out to confiscate them.

“We’re not going to be knocking on anybody’s door looking for them,” Bosenko said. “We’re essentially making law-abiding citizens into criminals with this new law.”

I think this is newsworthy in the “man bites dog”/really unusual event-sense.  Seeing sanity out of the institutions in California, state.gov or fed.gov, is so weird it's like having an actual crew of Klingons land their Bird of Prey in your front yard and ask to join you for tea and chocolate. 

For some reason, AP chose to illustrate their article with an older Ruger 10/22 carbine accompanied by a 25 round magazine and what it calls a 10; I'm using their picture because it looks like my older 10/22 carbine, before I put in a better magazine release.  It's also a useful picture to remind everyone these stupid magazine bans don't just affect EBRs; they affect everything.  I'm not familiar with that 10 round magazine, though.  The stock Ruger 10 round magazines are considerably smaller - just the top, block-shaped portion of these magazines.