He is slowly dripping into the sinkhole of irrelevance. So much so I would not put past him to livestream his suicide by gun in an ultimate act of narcissism.
You say I am being harsh? Call me paranoid but #MyLastShot is kind of  big ass hint as to tell people to end your life by your own hand.

Can we go ahead and Red Flag him?

In other news, Dear David: How did you really managed to get into Harvard with such a low GPA? Is there somebody you know that is under FBI investigation for the college admissions fraud?

Inquiring minds.

Saw this just now in Mike Kupari‘s Facebook page:

Jeff Goldblum & The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra. Yes, that Jeff Goldblum.

I was pleasantly surprised by the band and amazed at Haley Reinhart on the second video.

From Roof Koreans to the masked idiots in Berkeley.

In a peaceful society, a 10-round limit may not be severe. When thousands of people are rioting, as happened in Los Angeles in 1992, or more recently with Antifa members in Berkeley in 2017, a 10-round limit for self-defense is a severe burden. When a group of armed burglars break into a citizen’s home at night, and the homeowner in pajamas must choose between using their left hand to grab either a telephone, a flashlight, or an extra 10-round magazine, the burden is severe.

It continues with examples and ends the paragraph like this:

Surely, the rights protected by the Second Amendment are not to be trimmed away as unnecessary because today’s litigation happens during the best of times.

I have the feeling that trying to shock the judge with the issue of Mass Shootings backfired in a grandiose manner:

The State has not offered a compelling interest for the ban, arguing that intermediate scrutiny should be the test. If preventing mass shootings is the state’s interest, it is not at all clear that it would be compelling since such events are exceedingly rare. If the state’s interest is in forcing a “pause” during a mass shooting for a shooter to be apprehended, those events are even more rare.

And no mincing words:

Section 32310 is not narrowly tailored; it is not tailored at all. It fits like a burlap bag. It is a single-dimensional, prophylactic, blanket thrown across the population of the state.

Definition of Insanity

No case has held that intermediate scrutiny would permit a state to impinge even slightly on the Second Amendment right by employing a known failed experiment. Congress tried for a decade the nationwide experiment of prohibiting large capacity magazines. It failed. California has continued the failed experiment for another decade and now suggests that it may continue to do so ad infinitum without demonstrating success. That makes no sense.

I was unaware the Hollywood was exempt from the LCM ban. And why?

 Another example is the exception for movie props. Why in the interest of public safety does the movie industry need to use a genuine large capacity magazine for a prop? Is it too far-fetched to require the Hollywood creators of Mickey Mouse, Jaws, and Star Wars, to use a non-working magazine in place of a genuine large capacity magazine?

And once again, not a good idea to lie to a judge:

The State relies on the report of a commission reviewing the Sandy Hook shooting. DX-28. However, it misquotes the commission’s findings, saying “[d]ue to their lethality, LCMs ‘pose a distinct threat to safety in private settings as well as places of assembly.” Def. Opposition to Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment at 11. What was reported is, “[t]he Commission found that certain types of ammunition and magazines that were readily available at the time it issued its Interim Report posed a distinct threat to safety in private settings as well as in places of assembly.

Seriously, don’t lie to the judge:

(8.) large magazines not characteristically used for home?
The State asserts that large capacity magazines are not “weapons of the type characteristically used to protect the home,” citing Hightower v. City of Boston, 693 F.3d 61, 71 (1st Cir. 2012). Hightower was unconcerned with magazine size. Instead, it was a regulatory challenge brought by a former law enforcement officer whose permit to carry a revolver was revoked. Any inference to be drawn about magazines from the one-half sentence quoted is dicta.

The AG actuall used work from our friends of the Violence Policy Center who we all know love to fudge stats. That was not smart.

(11.) disproportionately used against police?
The State argues that large-capacity magazines are disproportionately used against police, citing an undated, unsigned, document created by an organization named the Violence Policy Center (DX-20 at 799-807). Def. Opposition to Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment, at 18. The document says nothing about violence against police.

And then, the finale:

When the simple test of Heller is applied, a test that persons of common intelligence can understand, the statute fails and is an unconstitutional abridgment. It criminalizes the otherwise lawful acquisition and possession of common magazines holding more than 10 rounds – magazines that lawabiding responsible citizens would choose for self-defense at home. It also fails the strict scrutiny test because the statute is not narrowly tailored – it is not tailored at all. Even under the more forgiving test of intermediate scrutiny, the statute fails because it is not a reasonable fit. It is not a reasonable fit because, among other things, it prohibits lawabiding concealed carry weapon permit holders and law-abiding U.S Armed Forces veterans from acquiring magazines and instead forces them to dispossess themselves of lawfully-owned gun magazines that hold more than 10 rounds or suffer criminal penalties. Finally, subsections (c) and (d) of § 32310 impose an unconstitutional taking without compensation upon Plaintiffs and all those who lawfully possess magazines able to hold more than 10 rounds.68 Accordingly, based upon the law and the evidence, upon which there is no genuine issue, and for the reasons stated in this opinion, Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment is granted.69 California Penal Code § 32310 is hereby declared to be unconstitutional in its entirety and shall be enjoined.

I left out a lot of stuff. Again, you need to sit down with your favorite adult beverage and read the whole thing.

Click here to download a PDF of Duncan v. Becerra.

A quick note: When I was laying in bed last night, still processing this brief, I realized that those states that are AWB laws and other assorted crap can benefit with what is being said in this decision. We have been given an amazing toolbox that we can use if we are going to speak in public and address our legislators or other ways. Read it and pick the best, use it. It is a shame for legislators that a court strikes one of their laws because it was deemed unconstitutional at the Bill Of Rights level.

Some have said that the burden is minor because there are other choices. E.g., Fyock v. City of Sunnyvale, 25 F. Supp. 3d 1267, 1278 (N.D. Cal. 2014), aff’d sub nom. Fyock v. Sunnyvale, 779 F.3d 991 (9th Cir. 2015) (“Individuals have countless other handgun and magazine options to exercise their Second Amendment rights . . . Accordingly, a prohibition on possession of magazines having a capacity to accept more than ten rounds applies only the most minor burden on the Second Amendment.”). But describing as minor, the burden on responsible, law-abiding citizens who may not possess a 15-round magazine for self-defense because there are other arms permitted with 10 or fewer rounds, is like saying that when government closes a Mormon church it is a minor burden because next door there is a Baptist church or a Hindu temple

I do believe this Judge is going the full “If Heller says the Second Amendment should be treated like the rest, by God I will.”

 

When a group of armed burglars break into a citizen’s home at night, and the homeowner in pajamas must choose between using their left hand to grab either a telephone, a flashlight, or an extra 10-round magazine, the burden is severe. When one is far from help in a sparsely populated part of the state, and law enforcement may not be able to respond in a timely manner, the burden of a 10-round limit is severe. When a major earthquake causes power outages, gas and water line ruptures, collapsed bridges and buildings, and chaos, the burden of a 10-round magazine limit is severe. When food distribution channels are disrupted and sustenance becomes scarce while criminals run rampant, the burden of a 10-round magazine limit is severe. Surely, the rights protected by the Second Amendment are not to be trimmed away as unnecessary because today’s litigation happens during the best of times.

This is going to come helpful now that the LAPD Chief wants to eliminate all CWP that they were forced to use in the 90s. The excuse he is using?

Technology has improved tremendously in the last 24 years which has enabled individuals to instantly communicate with law enforcement via cellphones from anywhere and at any time should they feel threatened,” Moore said.

The Second Amendment does not apply only in rainy days. It works 24/7 365.

California’s ban on magazines able to hold more than 10 rounds fails strict scrutiny. The State has not offered a compelling interest for the ban, arguing that intermediate scrutiny should be the test. If preventing mass shootings is the state’s interest, it is not at all clear that it would be compelling since such events are exceedingly rare. If the state’s interest is in forcing a “pause” during a mass shooting for a shooter to be apprehended, those events are even more rare.

And the AG was ballsy indeed.

The Attorney General says that empirical evidence is not required to shoulder his burden. Oppo. at 19. He says that the required substantial evidence demonstrating a reasonable fit can take other, softer forms such as “history, consensus, and simple common sense,” as well as “correlation evidence” and even simply “intuition.” … Yet, as the Second Circuit cautioned, “on intermediate scrutiny review, the state cannot ‘get away with shoddy data or reasoning.’ To survive intermediate scrutiny, the defendants must show ‘reasonable inferences based on substantial evidence.

Gun Control: We make shit up and you must accept it as dogma.

On page 47, look for the text before this quote. It seems the AG kinda-sorta-failed to tell the whole story and got caught. In  way, the judge also ask, “But, if they are forbidden! How come he had one?” Another question we keep asking and never gets properly answered by the Opposition. The judge takes a swipe at the data coming from Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Mother Jones.

Mass shootings are tragic. But they are rare events. And of these rare events, many are committed without large capacity magazines.

To summarize, the 36-year survey of mass shootings by Mother Jones magazine put forth by the AG as evidence of the State’s need for § 32310, undercuts its own argument. The AG’s evidence demonstrates that mass shootings in California are rare, and its criminalization of large capacity magazine acquisition and possession has had no effect on reducing the number of shots a perpetrator can fire. The only effect of § 32310 is to make criminals of California’s 39 million law-abiding citizens who want to have ready for their self-defense a firearm with more than 10 rounds. (Page 51)

This is not going to sit well with Mother Jones. You data used to favor the Second Amendment? That I gonna leave  mark.

And last quote for now.

The Attorney General has submitted two unofficial surveys to prove mass shootings are a problem made worse by firearm magazines holding more than 10 rounds. Do the surveys pass the Federal Rule of Evidence Rule 403 test for relevance? Yes. Are the surveys admissible under Federal Rule of Evidence Rule 802? No. They are double or triple hearsay. No foundation has been laid. No authentication attempted. Are they reliable? No. Are they anything more than a selected compilation of news articles – articles which are themselves inadmissible? No. Are the compilers likely to be biased? Yes. Where are the actual police investigation reports? The Attorney General, California’s top law enforcement officer, has not submitted a single official police report of a shooting. Instead, the Attorney General relies on news articles and interest group surveys.

Lies of omission.

More to come tomorrow.

I stole it from ‏ @Tactical_review and posted in Facebook.

The crowd was suddenly armed with pitchforks and torches and looking at me with very nasty eyes. I barely made it out.

California’s statute to confiscate all magazines over 10 rounds has been permanently enjoined by the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. The opinion was written by Judge Roger T. Benitez.

Previously, Judge Benitez had issued a preliminary injunction against the confiscation law, and the preliminary injunction was upheld by the Ninth Circuit, as discussed in this post. Today’s decision follows cross-motions for summary judgment, and makes the injunction permanent. The next step in Duncan v. Becerra will be an appeal to the Ninth Circuit by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.

District Court permanently enjoins California magazine confiscation law

Don’t ask me if this means a crack in the bases and then the upcoming collapse of California’s Gun Laws. I know better than predicting the future of a case, yet I will remain hopeful. You need to read the brief, it is invigorating and goes point by point the whys and whatnots of the case. And also why is never a good idea to lie, specially to the court . Here are some samples of the brief.

Few would say that a 100 or 50-round rifle magazine in the hands of a murderer is a good idea. Yet, the “solution” for preventing a mass shooting exacts a high toll on the everyday freedom of ordinary law-abiding citizens. Many individual robberies, rapes, and shootings are not prevented by the State. Unless a law-abiding individual has a firearm for his or her own defense, the police typically arrive after it is too late. With rigor mortis setting in, they mark and bag the evidence, interview bystanders, and draw a chalk outline on the ground. But the victim, nevertheless, is dead, or raped, or robbed, or traumatized

That is the judge saying it, not the NRA or me or any other blogger.

Today, self-protection is most important. In the future, the common defense may once again be most important. Constitutional rights stand through time holding fast through the ebb and flow of current controversy. Needing a solution to a current law enforcement difficulty cannot be justification for ignoring the Bill of Rights as bad policy. Bad political ideas cannot be stopped by criminalizing bad political speech. Crime waves cannot be broken with warrantless searches and unreasonable seizures. Neither can the government response to a few mad men with guns and ammunition be a law that turns millions of responsible, law-abiding people trying to protect themselves into criminals. Yet, this is the effect of California’s large-capacity magazine law.

You guys have read me saying in this blog: Anybody who hates the Second Amendment, usually dislikes the rest of the Bill of Rights.

Teixeira v. Cty. of Alameda, 873 F.3d 670, 677 (9th Cir. 2017) (en banc) (“We recognized in Jackson that, although the Second Amendment ‘does not explicitly protect ammunition, [but] without bullets, the right to bear arms would be meaningless.’

Ouch. One for the idiots that keep wanting to put a 1,000% tax on ammunition.

Magazines holding more than 10 rounds are used for self-defense by law-abiding citizens. And they are common.28 Lawful in at least 41 states and under federal law, these magazines number in the millions. Plaintiff’s Exh. 1 (James Curcuruto Report), at 3 (“There are at least one hundred million magazines of a capacity of more than ten rounds in possession of American citizens, commonly used for various lawful purposes.

That one kills the Not In Common Use excuse. And so does the next:

To the extent that magazines holding more than 10 rounds may be less common within California, it would likely be the result of the State long criminalizing the buying, selling, importing, and manufacturing of these magazines. Saying that large capacity magazines are uncommon because they have been banned for so long is something of a tautology. It cannot be used as constitutional support for further banning. See Friedman v. City of Highland Park, Illinois, 784 F.3d 406, 409 (7th Cir. 2015) (“Yet it would be absurd to say that the reason why a particular weapon can be banned is that there is a statute banning it, so that it isn’t commonly used. A law’s existence can’t be the source of its own constitutional validity.”

It gets better.

3. Lethality is Not the Test
Some say that the use of “large capacity magazines” increases the lethality of gun violence. They point out that when large capacity magazines are used in mass shootings, more shots are fired, more people are wounded, and more wounds are fatal than in other mass shootings.31 That may or may not be true. Certainly, a gun when abused is lethal. A gun holding more than 10 rounds is lethal to more people than a gun holding less than 10 rounds, but it is not constitutionally decisive. Nothing in the Second Amendment makes lethality a factor to consider because a gun’s lethality, or dangerousness, is assumed. The Second Amendment does not exist to protect the right to bear down pillows and foam baseball bats. It protects guns and every gun is dangerous.

And more:

California law presently permits the lethality of a gun with a 10-round magazine. In other words, a gun with an 11-round magazine or a 15-round magazine is apparently too lethal to be possessed by a law-abiding citizen. A gun with a 10-round magazine is not. Missing is a constitutionally-permissible standard for testing acceptable lethality. The Attorney General offers no objective standard. Heller sets out a commonality standard that can be applied to magazine hardware: is the size of the magazine “common”? If so, the size is constitutionally-protected.

How many times have we asked Gun Control fanatics why 10 and not 11? I know I have lost count and they could never come up with a reason and apparently neither the Attorney General. And now comes the whammy.

If the “too lethal” standard is followed to its logical conclusion, the government may dictate in the future that a magazine of eight rounds is too lethal. And after that, it may dictate that a gun with a magazine holding three rounds is too lethal since a person usually fires only 2.2 rounds in self-defense. This stepped-down approach may continue32 until the time comes when government declares that only guns holding a single round are sufficiently lacking in lethality that they are both “safe” to possess and powerful enough to provide a means of self-defense

And the notation accompanying the above is even more brutal.

Artificial limits will eventually lead to disarmament. It is an insidious plan to disarm the populace and it depends on for its success a subjective standard of “necessary” lethality. It does not take the imagination of Jules Verne to predict that if all magazines over 10 rounds are somehow eliminated from California, the next mass shooting will be accomplished with guns holding only 10 rounds. To reduce gun violence, the state will close the newly christened 10-round “loophole” and use it as a justification to outlaw magazines holding more than 7 rounds. The legislature will determine that no more than 7 rounds are “necessary.” Then the next mass shooting will be accomplished with guns holding 7 rounds. To reduce the new gun violence, the state will close the 7-round “loophole” and outlaw magazines holding more than 5 rounds determining that no more than 5 rounds is “necessary.” And so it goes, until the only lawful firearm law-abiding responsible citizens will be permitted to possess is a single-shot handgun. Or perhaps, one gun, but no ammunition. Or ammunition issued only to persons deemed trustworthy.

This is like watching Mike Tyson beat up a 4-year-old. I know the post is getting long, so let me close with this juicy bit.

The Attorney General names five additional states that enacted firing-capacity restrictions in the 1930s with capacity limits less than 10 rounds. But he is not entirely accurate. His first example is not an example, at all. For his first example, he says that, “[i]n 1933, South Dakota banned any ‘weapon from which more than five shots or bullets may be rapidly or automatically, or semi-automatically discharged from a magazine [by a single function of the firing device].’” Def’s Oppo. (4/9/18) at 4 (emphasis in original). Actually, this was not a ban. This was South Dakota’s definition of a machine gun

That is legalese for ” You got caught lying to a judge.”

The Attorney General’s second example of a longstanding firing-capacity prohibition is a Virginia ban enacted in 1934. However, like the first South Dakota example, the second example is not an example, at all. The Attorney General describes the law as a ban on firearms that discharge seven rounds rapidly. It is not ban. It also defines “machine gun.”

This one is: “You got caught lying to a judge again.”

The third cited example is like the first two. It is an Act passed by the South Carolina legislature in 1934 titled, An Act Regulating the Use and Possession of Machine Guns. Ex. E to Def.’s Request for Judicial Notice (filed 4/9/18). These three statutes are examples of machine gun bans that are prohibited because of their ability to continuously fire rounds with a single trigger pull, rather than their overall firing-capacity.

Third time is the charm.

I am leaving this one in closing. From page 38:

A law like § 32310 that prevents a law-abiding citizen from obtaining a firearm with enough rounds to defend self, family, and property in and around the home certainly implicates the core of the Second Amendment. When a person has fired the permitted 10 rounds and the danger persists, a statute limiting magazine size to only 10 rounds severely burdens that core right to selfdefense.

I stopped here for the night. Not even halfway through it and it is an amazing document. It is your duty to read it all and keep a copy on standby to bitchslap the opposition with it.