Some of the weapons that include handguns, rifles, shotguns and assault weapons, collected in a Los Angeles Gun Buyback event displayed during a news conference at the LAPD headquarters in Los Angeles. SACRAMENTO, California A federal judge has overturned California’s three-decade-old ban on assault weapons, calling it a “failed experiment” that violates people's constitutional right to bear arms.
In his 94-page ruling, the judge spoke favorably of modern weapons and said they were overwhelmingly used for legal reasons. Similar assault weapon restrictions have previously been upheld by six other federal district and appeals courts, the state argued. Overturning the ban would allow not only assault rifles, but things like assault shotguns and assault pistols, state officials said.“This case is not about extraordinary weapons lying at the outer limits of Second Amendment protection. The banned ‘assault weapons’ are not bazookas, howitzers, or machine guns.
"The burden on the core Second Amendment right, if any, is minimal,” the state argued, because the weapons can still be used — just not with the modifications that turn them into assault weapons. Modifications like a shorter barrel or collapsible stock make them more concealable, state officials said, while things like a pistol grip or thumbhole grip make them more lethal by improving their accuracy as they are fired rapidly.
The lawsuit said California is “one of only a small handful states to ban many of the most popular semiautomatic firearms in the nation because they possess one or more common characteristics, such as pistol grips and threaded barrels,” frequently but not exclusively along with detachable ammunition magazines.
“Too many families across the nation have lost loved ones in shootings carried out with assault weapons. They can attest to the reality that these weapons are not like ‘Swiss Army knives’ nor are mass shootings only a ‘very small’ problem,” said Robyn Thomas, executive director of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a group led by Gabrielle Giffords, the former congresswoman from Arizona who was shot and wounded in a mass shooting 10 years ago.
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