BELLEVUE, WA – Attorneys representing the Second Amendment Foundation, Calguns Foundation, Firearms Policy Foundation and others have filed a lengthy brief in support of their original motion for a temporary restraining order and issuance of a preliminary injunction against the state’s new ban on so-called “high capacity” magazines.
Such magazines have generally been prohibited in California since 2000, but there was a provision that “grandfathered” such magazines that were already owned. The ban only applied to acquisition, importation or manufacture of large capacity magazines after its date of effectiveness.
However, the state has changed the rules via Proposition 63. The plaintiffs argue that this measure reneged on the original agreement by retroactively applying the ban to those older magazines. Owners are required to remove them from the state or sell them to a licensed firearms dealer, or simply surrender them.
“This amounts to being forcibly dispossessed of private property,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “What we have in California is an attempt to penalize law-abiding citizens for possessing equipment that has never been involved in a crime. There is no evidence that such a ban will advance the state objective of the law, which is to prevent mass shootings and other crimes these citizens didn’t commit.”
The 53-page brief was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California. Joining SAF, Calguns and the Firearms Policy Foundation are the Firearms Policy Coalition and ten individual citizens.
“We’re taking this action because the expanded ban is supposed to take effect on July 1,” Gottlieb noted.