BELLEVUE, WA – Attorneys for the Second Amendment Foundation and its partners in a federal lawsuit which overturned California’s ban on so-called “assault weapons” have filed a 65-page response brief to the state’s appeal of its loss in a case known as Miller v. Bonta.
The case involves SAF, the San Diego County Gun Owners Political Action Committee, California Gun Rights Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition and four private citizens, including James Miller, for whom the case is named. They are represented by attorneys George M. Lee at Seiler Epstein, LLP, John W. Dillon at the Dillon Law Group, APC, and David H. Thompson, Peter A. Patterson and Clark L. Hildebrand at Cooper & Kirk.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed an appeal with the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
“The state is struggling to argue its ban on modern semiautomatic firearms is permissible, but there is no historical analogue supporting such a ban,” noted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “California is attempting to ban firearms which are in common use, after claiming they are only suitable for military use. But that argument ignores one of the major reasons for protecting the individual right to keep and bear arms found in the Second Amendment.”
“California’s arguments fall far short of credulity,” added SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “It is obvious from the outset that the state is trying to mask its efforts to regulate firearms under the sort of means-end scrutiny which the Supreme Court in Bruen clearly rejected.”
District Judge Roger T. Benitez ruled in favor of SAF and its partners in October and the state quickly filed notice of appeal. Both Gottlieb and Kraut said it is clear California is stubbornly refusing to recognize the parameters and breadth of the Second Amendment, and it will probably take a Supreme Court ruling to bring the state into compliance.