“Biden is suggesting that Americans who own guns for self-defense should be subject to the same limits as duck hunters, notwithstanding the obvious differences between these two situations.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit yesterday vacated a 2020 decision that blocked California’s ban on magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. A federal judge in 2019 concluded that the law, which prohibits possession as well as manufacture and sale, was inconsistent with the Second Amendment. Last year a three-judge 9th Circuit panel agreed. Now the full court will rehear Duncan v. Becerra, raising the possibility that the ban will be upheld after all.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, the defendant in the lawsuit, welcomed that development. “Large-capacity magazines have been used in many horrific mass shootings around the country, including right here in California,” he said in a press release. “That’s why today’s decision by the Ninth Circuit to rehear this case is critical; it is the next step in the defense of our state’s commonsense gun laws.”
Becerra’s notion of “common sense,” like President Joe Biden’s, may be common, but that does not mean it makes any sense. Becerra thinks it is self-evident that a 10-round limit on magazine capacity saves lives by making mass shootings less deadly. At the same time, he cannot conceive of a situation where anyone would need more than 10 rounds for self-defense. The advantage that extra rounds give a mass shooter by reducing the time spent switching magazines somehow disappears when a law-abiding gun owner is defending himself, his family, or his property from violent criminals.
By JACOB SULLUM
