Rob Bonta has been screwing over The People of California since the day he took office. He took over exactly where his predecessor left off, working hard to deny The People of California the ability to acquire, carry, and use guns.
Around nine years ago, Virginia Duncan wanted to purchase a standard magazine. California refused to sell her a standard magazine because the state had decided that standard magazines are too dangerous.
Virginia, having a better than 3rd grade reading comprehension level, understood that “shall not be infringed” meant that the state has no say in what arms she possesses or wishes to acquire. Thus showing that even a 3rd grader has a better comprehension of our rights than the state of California and Rob Bonta.
Virginia filed a civil rights case against California. The case was assigned to Judge (Saint) Benitez. He found the magazine ban was unconstitutional.
He used a text, followed by history and tradition, as Heller directed to reach his ruling. Because he was under the Ninth Circuit, he layered it in a scrutiny decision, where he used strict scrutiny.
His ruling placed an injunction on the state, and The People of California celebrated freedom week by buying as many magazines as were available to be had. Online vendors flatly told customers that magazines being shipped to California had priority and that others would just have to wait.
The state came back and asked for an administrative stay.
Benitez granted the stay with the explicit ruling that magazines that had already been purchased but not yet received or that had been received were exempt from California’s infringement.
A 3-judge merits panel affirmed (agreed with Benitez) that the magazine ban was unconstitutional. They left the administrative stay in place because everyone knows that the state was going to petition for an en banc panel and it would be granted.
No en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit has ever found a Second Amendment infringement. Every case they have heard on gun control, they have ruled in favor of the state.
Which was precisely what happened. The Ninth Circuit heard the case en banc and ruled for the state. This was appealed to the Supreme Court.
The case became one of the dozen or so Second Amendment challenges at the Supreme Court, waiting for cert or denial of cert. New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. New York City was granted cert. New York State then mooted the case.
In the end, the Supreme Court took up New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. In June of 2022, they issued their opinion in Bruen
Once Bruen issued, The Court then granted cert to a number of other Second Amendment cases, vacated the lower (circuit) court’s rulings, and remanded the cases back for review in light of Bruen.
A GVR, like this, is explicit instructions to the inferior court to rethink their original opinion, considering the instructions provided in the latest case.
A GVR is clear. If the inferior court had gotten it right, the Supreme Court would have denied cert, and the case would be over. The remand when the inferior court got it wrong.
The rogue inferior courts refuse to see it this way and continue to support infringements.
It reminds me of when I was going to arbitration over some property. I was offered $16k as a buyout. The offer came with the calculations showing how the co-owner reached that number. I pointed out that his calculations were in error.
The next week, at arbitration, he offers me $16K as a buyout. This time with a different set of (bogus) calculations. I showed how his numbers were still bogus.
The next week, $16K again. Different set of calculations. I again called him on his bogus calculations. I then stated, “$16k is all you have to offer, isn’t it? It isn’t justified by anything. It is all you have to offer.”
It turned out that his wife’s sister had given them $16K to buy me out.
These rogue inferior courts act the same way he did. They know the result they want, they get that result using some justification. When they are called on the inherent error in their justification, they don’t do it right. They get the same result using a different set of justifications.
It doesn’t matter what the rules say; they will always get the result they want.
Because the case was coming back to the Ninth Circuit, the same en banc panel took the case, again.
It is important to understand that the Ninth Circuit is so large that it is impossible to get all the judges to sit to hear a case. Instead, they draw judges at random to create an “en banc” panel of 11 judges. Smaller circuits have all active judges sit for an en banc case. This means the results of an en banc panel in the Ninth Circuit are random, leaning heavily towards the state.
The en banc panel decided that they needed more fact finding. They sent the case back down to the district court.
The district court did the right thing and once again found that magazine bans are unconstitutional.
The Ninth decided the district court was wrong.
Today, Duncan goes back into conference at the Supreme Court. It is in the same place it was in 2022 before Bruen.
And one very bad aspect of this: no judge who played their little buk-buk games with peoples’ rights – twice, in this case – will suffer any consequences for doing so.
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That’s one reason this abuse keeps happening – they have literally no reason not to keep doing it.