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Date: 05-11-2022
Case Style:
Case Number: 3:19-cv-01226- L-AHG
Judge: M. James Lorenz
Court: United States District Court for the Central District of Claifornia (Los Angeles County)
Plaintiff's Attorney: Haley N. Proctor (argued), David H. Thompson, Peter A.
Patterson, and John D. Ohlendorf
Defendant's Attorney: Jennifer E. Rosenberg (argued) and John D. Echeverria,
Deputy Attorneys General; Mark R. Beckington,
Supervising Deputy Attorney General; Thomas S. Patterson,
Senior Assistant Attorney General; Rob Bonta, Attorney
General; Office of the Attorney General, Los Angeles,
California
Description: Los Angeles, California Constitutional law lawyers represented Plaintiff, who sued Defendants on civil rights violation theories.
"California has restricted the sale of most firearms to
anyone under 21. Plaintiffs challenged the bans on long
guns and semiautomatic centerfire rifles under the Second
Amendment. The district court declined to issue a
preliminary injunction.
We hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion
in declining to enjoin the requirement that young adults
obtain a hunting license to purchase a long gun. But the
district court erred in not enjoining an almost total ban on
semiautomatic centerfire rifles. First, the Second
Amendment protects the right of young adults to keep and
bear arms, which includes the right to purchase them. The
district court reasoned otherwise and held that the laws did
not burden Second Amendment rights at all: that was legal
error. Second, the district court properly applied
intermediate scrutiny to the long gun hunting license
regulation and did not abuse its discretion in finding it likely
to survive. But third, the district court erred by applying
intermediate scrutiny, rather than strict scrutiny, to the
semiautomatic centerfire rifle ban. And even under
intermediate scrutiny, this ban likely violates the Second
Amendment because it fails the “reasonable fit” test.
Finally, the district court also abused its discretion in finding
that Plaintiffs would not likely be irreparably harmed."
Outcome: Judgment in favor of Defendants reversed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals holding that a ban on sales of long gun and semiautomatice centerfire rifles to anyone under the age of 21.
See: Ninth Circuit Decision
Plaintiff's Experts:
Defendant's Experts:
Comments: