"California, Game on!!" Gun supplier and outfitter Target Sports USA didn't restrain its jubilation on Tuesday in an email confirming it was joining scores of shops and sellers to ship high-capacity ammunition magazines, now contraband-free, to California. The move essentially busts open the firearm floodgates. Cheerleading on the site continued above images of an assortment of 17-round Glock magazines selling for $20, and 30-round PMAG—a military grade, polymer-based magazine for the AR-15 platform rifle—fetching $12.30 apiece with the missive: "Due to the reversal of California Penal Code 32310, Target Sports USA is pleased to announce California customers may purchase large capacity magazines!" Since Friday afternoon, arms dealers and wholesalers nationwide have been shipping "freedom" to California consumers after its nearly 20-year state law banning high-capacity gun magazines—those exceeding 10 rounds of ammunition—was struck down by U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez's 86-page decision in San Diego's federal court. The joy is set to be short-lived. On Thursday, the judge acquiesced to California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and granted a stay of judgment that will restore the California Penal Code 32310 ban that he lifted by close of business on Friday. That gave vendors and consumers a ticking clock to buy and sell the magazines before they once again become illicit items. Magazines holding more than 10 rounds are "arms," Benitez concluded in his original ruling, citing the ban from 2000 (and subsequent Proposition 63 passed in 2016) as unconstitutional as it "burdens the core of the Second Amendment." He claimed that 32310 criminalizes "the acquisition and possession of these magazines that are commonly held by law-abiding citizens for defense of self, home, and state…. Criminalizes the otherwise lawful acquisition and possession of common magazines holding more than 10 rounds—magazines that law-abiding responsible citizens would choose for self-defense at home." Benitez even compared the infringement on the Second Amendment right to bear arms to the rippling infringements of Great Britain's rule waning in America centuries ago. "This decision is a freedom calculus decided long ago by Colonists who cherished individual freedom more than the subservient security of a British ruler," Benitez wrote. "The freedom they fought for was not free of cost then, and it is not free now." Once the green light was official, inventory of long- or high-capacity magazines has been vanishing the shelves, both brick-and-mortar and online. Some of the online business owners Newsweek interviewed said the lion's share of high-capacity magazines were being purchased and shipped to the Golden State. "There has been significant uptick and interest across all of California since Friday," said Eric Ward, owner of Houston-based 4Ward Defense and Training, which runs HoustonGunsOnline.com. He believes California's "purchasing power" as one of the largest economies in the world is already massive and has the potential to change all kinds of industries, the gun industry being "no exception." "California is a very stringent and draconian gun law state where there are arbitrary limitations that are put on the capacity that firearms are able to hold at any given time," Ward said. At Impact Guns in Ogden, Utah, an employee who gave only his first name, Samuel, told Newsweek that the magazines for the AR-15 style rifles were "definitely being increased" to California, but added that "there's also been orders for all sorts of different mags." As of 2017, California was one of the top three states in terms of firearms numbers, with 344,622 guns, according to National Firearms Act Registered Weapons stats issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Hours after the initial order was filed on March 29, William McNeil appeared in a YouTube video brandishing a 40 round PMAG magazine. The 42-year-old had just returned from a Las Vegas family trip where he dangled a plastic bag holding $500 worth of gun goodies bought at Bass Pro Shops. "I took it out of the package a little early," McNeil said. "And while I know this is not a big deal to the majority of the country, it's a big deal to us here in California. "Being able to buy this, own this, possess this, and show this here on YouTube without fear of something happening—you know it's fantastic. The timing of this video is 100 percent perfectly legal." In an interview with Newsweek, McNeil proudly defended his right to be able to take advantage of Benitez's order. "I rely on the Second Amendment," he said. "Until you actually get squeezed on what's supposed to be a right, and feel that squeeze for decades—it's hard to comprehend." The Christmas-in-April feeling wasn't lost on his viewers. One of them shared in the gun giddiness. A commenter known as "jlac" lauded the judge as a kind of saint who gave the country some early cheer. "God bless Judge Benitez ! Got pmags and hi cap glock mags on the way! Feels like Christmas! Haha," the commenter wrote. Civil Rights attorney Chuck Michel, who is leading the battle lodged by the California Rifle & Pistol Association (CRPA) in the Duncan v. Becerra case that brought about Friday's ruling, marveled at the level of demand in a state that has been loaded with restrictions on its arms. "There is a huge, pent-up demand for these magazines, because people recognize their value as self-defense tools," Michel told Newsweek. Congratulations California!You can now purchase any magazine you see on our website. Posted by Sportsman's Outdoor Superstore on Monday, April 1, 2019 He reflected on California's pivotal 2000 law mandating that gun manufacturers "revise their California packages" and switch from so-called "standard-capacity magazines," which are actually the high-capacity magazines that hold 15, 17, 21 rounds, with ones that those in gun circles liken to "low-" or "small-" capacity 10-round magazines. The ban's lifting put California on par with many other states who are already using extended- or high-capacity magazines. "Magazines that are 10 rounds or less are actually an anomaly across the greater gun market," Ward explained. "If you are required to have a restricted small-capacity magazine, you are the outlier." The industry standard, he said, goes from 15 rounds to 20-, 30- or 40-round magazines.<doc-sep>U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez issued a partial stay in the judgement against California’s “high capacity” magazine ban. A brief history on rulings associated with this ban is helpful: On June 29, 2017, Breitbart News reported that Benitez blocked the implementation of California’s “high-capacity” magazine ban two days before it was to go into effect. He noted that the ban could not survive the test of Supreme Court’s District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) ruling. He noted “When the simple test of Heller is applied … the statute is adjudged an unconstitutional abridgment.” On July 17, 2018, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld Benitez’s ruling by a 2-to-1 vote, but sent the case back to Benitez for reconsideration. On March 29, 2019, Breitbart News reported that Benitez again ruled against the ban, issuing an order barring California Attorney General Xavier Becerra from enforcing the ban. On April 2, 2019, Breitbart News reported that Becerra was requesting a stay on the March 29 ruling, pending outcome of appeal. Benitez has now issued a stay on the March 29, 2019, ruling, effective at 5 p.m. on April 5, 2019, while subsequently upholding the June 29, 2017, ruling as a means of protecting individuals who purchased “high capacity” magazines between March 30 and April 5. The case is Duncan v. Becerra, No. 2:17-cv-56-81 in the U.S. District Court for Southern California. AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.<doc-sep>A federal judge on Friday agreed to halt the implementation of his ruling last week that struck down a California law prohibiting large-capacity firearms magazines while the state prepares to appeal his original decision. U.S. District Court Judge Roger Benitez issued the stay at the request of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, whose office will challenge Benitez's March 29 ruling in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal, the Sacramento Bee reported. That means California gun owners are still not allowed to buy magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition while the case goes through the judicial process. CALIFORNIA'S GUN SEIZURE PROGRAM HITS HURDLES “The court understands that strong emotions are felt by people of good will on both sides of the constitutional and social policy questions,” Benitez wrote in his reverse order. “The court understands that thoughtful and law-abiding citizens can and do firmly hold competing opinions on firearm magazine restrictions. These concerns auger in favor of judicial deliberation. There is an immeasurable societal benefit of maintaining the immediate status quo while the process of judicial review takes place.” In striking down the magazine ban, Benitez cited a home invasion where a woman used the extra rounds to kill an attacker and two other cases where women ran of bullets. He said the ban violated Californians’ Second Amendment rights to own firearms. CALIFORNIA DEMS FLEX NEW SUPERMAJORITY, WITH PLANS TO PURSUE GUN TAX AND MORE The law has made it illegal to buy or sell such magazines since 2000, but those who had them before were grandfathered in. The ruling led to an advertising blitz by some gun manufacturers. Gun maker Berretta promoted an online discount in connection to the ruling, the Bee reported. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Becerra said lifting the ban would lead to a surge in large-capacity gun magazines into the state. “It’s clear that there are those who are now trying to flood the state of California with what were until this decision, illegal high-capacity magazines, the type of magazines that are used in firearms to create the mass shootings that we’ve seen throughout this country,” Becerra said at a news conference. The Associated Press contributed to this report.<doc-sep>In an opinion being trumpeted by the National Rifle Association as a “huge win for gun owners,” a federal judge has ruled that California’s ban on high-capacity gun magazines is unconstitutional. District judge Roger Benitez struck down the California ban on magazines holding more than 10 bullets, ruling that the second amendment guarantees access to such magazines for “self-defense at home.” In an at-times lurid 86-page decision — which begins with three bloody, true-crime vignettes of home invasions and hails of bullets — Benitez writes less like a judge than a gun-lobby pamphleteer. In 2017 alone, California’s “population of 39 million people endured 56,609 robberies, 105,391 aggravated assaults and 95,942 residential burglaries. There were also 423 homicides in victims’ residences,” the judge writes. “As evidenced by California’s own crime statistics, the need to protect one’s self and family from criminals in one’s home has not abated…. Law enforcement cannot protect everyone… Fortunately,” Benitez continues, “the Second Amendment protects a person’s right to keep and bear firearms.” For Benitez, California’s ban on high-capacity magazines runs afoul of the constitutional right, established under the Supreme Court’s District of Columbia v. Heller decision, to keep a handgun in the home. The judge found that the state’s decision that 10 bullets in a single magazine is sufficient to provide for self defense, while helping to limit the impact of mass shootings, had been reached “arbitrarily” — and disregards the popularity of guns like “the Glock 17 pistol, which is designed for, and typically sold with, a 17-round magazine,” or a Ruger youth rifle, with sales in the millions, that is often equipped with magazines of 15 or 25 rounds. Benitez writes that the Supreme Court established a simple test in its Heller decision for whether banning certain weapons is unconstitutional. “It is a hardware test,” he writes. “Is the firearm hardware commonly owned? Is the hardware commonly owned by law-abiding citizens? Is the hardware owned by those citizens for lawful purposes? If the answers are ‘yes,’ the test is over. The hardware is protected.” Benitez adds that the California law is also improper for creating “substantial criminal penalties [for a] law-abiding, responsible, citizen who desires such magazines to protect hearth and home,” which, Benitez writes, “imposes a burden on the constitutional right that this Court judges as severe.” The district judge recognizes, only obliquely, that the freedom of law-abiding gun owners could create severe costs for victims of mass shootings: “This decision is a freedom calculus decided long ago by Colonists who cherished individual freedom more than the subservient security of a British ruler,” Benitez writes, waxing historical. “The freedom they fought for was not free of cost then, and it is not free now.” The California law in question has never been implemented, having been suspended in prior litigation. And Benitez’s decision will, too, likely be tied up in an appeals process, before its logic can be applied to other state laws limiting magazine size. (Other courts have approved magazine limits in effect in states including New York and Connecticut, as constitutional.) Even the NRA appears to believe that Benitez ruling could be overturned. “Unfortunately, Friday’s opinion is not likely to be the last word on the case,” the gun lobby wrote after the decision was handed down on Friday. “The state will likely appeal to the Ninth Circuit, which has proven notably hostile to the Second Amendment in past decisions.”<doc-sep>
A federal judge in California on Friday ruled against the Golden State’s ban on gun magazines that are able to hold more than 10 rounds. U.S. District Court Judge Roger T. Benitez said the rule violates the Second Amendment and infringes upon citizens’ rights to defend themselves. ADVERTISEMENT “California’s law prohibiting acquisition and possession of magazines able to hold any more than 10 rounds places a severe restriction on the core right of self-defense of the home such that it amounts to a destruction of the right and is unconstitutional under any level of scrutiny,” he wrote in an 86-page decision. “California’s ban is far-reaching, absolute, and permanent. The ban on acquisition and possession on magazines able to hold more than 10 rounds, together with the substantial criminal penalties threatening a law-abiding, responsible, citizen who desires such magazines to protect hearth and home, imposes a burden on the constitutional right that this Court judges as severe,” he wrote. Benitez, a George W. Bush appointee who serves on the bench for the Southern District of California, also wrote that California’s ban unfairly impacts a wide swath of the state’s gun owners, as many choose to use magazines containing over 10 rounds for their defense. “The magazine ban arbitrarily selects 10 rounds as the magazine capacity over which possession is unlawful. … The ban on magazines that hold more than 10 rounds amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of ‘arms’ that is overwhelmingly chosen by American citizens for the lawful purpose of self-defense,” he ruled. The National Rifle Association (NRA), which backed the lawsuit, hailed the decision as a “huge win for gunowners.” “Judge Benitez took the Second Amendment seriously and came to the conclusion required by the Constitution,” NRA's Institute for Legislative Action Executive Director Chris Cox said in a statement. “The same should be true of any court analyzing a ban on a class of arms law-abiding Americans commonly possess for self-defense or other lawful purposes.” The gun lobbying group acknowledged that the state was likely to appeal Friday's decision to the 9th Circuit. California is widely considered to have some of the strictest gun control policies in the country. "We are committed to defending California’s commonsense gun laws and are reviewing the decision to evaluate next steps," California Attorney General Xavier Becerra Xavier BecerraHHS commits .8B for testing uninsured people for COVID-19 Becerra calls for 'transparent' investigation into COVID-19 origins Taiwan presses US on COVID-19 vaccines MORE (D) said in a statement to The Hill. Updated at 8:18 p.m.