Anita Chabria writes in today's Los Angeles Times under the headline, "Trump’s judges are coming for California’s gun laws. Can we stop them?" The context, of course, is two recent mass murders by 18-year-old men wielding semi-automatic weapons. These events have resurfaced the issue of whether 18 year olds should be able to buys guns at all--and whether they should be able to buy assault weapons. California previously had on the books a law prohibiting those under 21 from buying weapons, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit struck that law as unconstitutional a few weeks ago.
Here's the gist of Chabria's column:
[California] may be running out of options to control AR-15s and other high-powered firearms in California, and across the nation, because conservative judges are poised to return to a Wild West era of gun rights. As in, anything goes.
* * *
The greatest threat to controlling guns in the Golden State is “extremist judges,” [California Governor Gavin] Newsom warned, even as he promised to sign a dozen new gun laws if the Legislature passes them. Without a doubt, some will end up challenged in court, in front of those Federalist Society justices, many appointed by Trump, who are intent on pulling the U.S. as far right as possible.
Newsom particularly name-checked a Trump appointee to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Ryan D. Nelson, who wrote a recent 2-1 decision that found unconstitutional California’s ban on allowing anyone under the age of 21 to have an assault weapon. My personal favorite bit of reasoning in that opinion was this justification for why teenagers have a right to semiautomatic rifles:“Semiautomatic rifles are able to defeat modern body armor, have a much longer range than shotguns and are more effective in protecting roaming kids on large homesteads, are much more precise and capable at preventing collateral damage, and are typically easier for small young adults to use and handle.” Nelson wrote.
I'm reading the "large homesteads" as signaling farms and ranches, or rural places generally. It reminds me of some language in an Arizona state court decision a few years ago that struck down a state law that differentiated between rural and urban places in terms of gun ownership. Read that case here. The most salient parts follow:
2 Section 13-3111 prohibits "an unemancipated person who is under eighteen years of age ... [from] knowingly carry[ing] or possess[ing] ... a firearm in any place that is open to the public or on any street or highway...."[2] The statute specifically exempts, however, those who are fourteen years of age or older and engaged in certain activities, such as "lawful hunting or shooting events or marksmanship practice at established ranges."[3] When the legislature enacted § 13-3111, it made several findings. Among them, it found that
[t]he subject of minors carrying, possessing or transporting firearms is a matter of statewide concern and that state law must continue to preempt local ordinances on the subject.... [T]he state reaffirms that laws on this subject must continue to be uniform so that minors have a fair opportunity to know the rules, the act of crossing a city boundary will not inadvertently subject a minor to criminal penalties and all citizens in this state can have full confidence that they are fully protected by the same law.[4]Nevertheless, under subsection H of the statute, the legislature limited its application to "counties with populations of more than five hundred thousand persons."
The state nonetheless asserts that § 13-3111 properly focuses on Pima and Maricopa Counties because "the problems of youth gun violence are most prevalent" there. The state argues that one can "infer that higher populated counties [contain] urban areas where juvenile street gangs are more likely to exist" and thus "experience a higher rate of juvenile gun-related crime than less populated counties." The state's argument, however, rests upon an inference *983 we cannot adopt. First, the legislative findings noted above do not reasonably support such an inference. Second, although an appellate court may take judicial notice of a fact, it "must be so notoriously true as not to be subject to reasonable dispute."[14] Here, we cannot indisputably say that "juvenile street gangs are more likely to exist" in the urban areas of Pima and Maricopa Counties and that, as a result, those counties have "a higher rate of juvenile gun-related crime." And, even if we did take judicial notice of these purported facts, we cannot say § 13-3111 rationally applies to the vast rural areas of these two counties but not to the equally vast rural areas of Arizona's remaining thirteen counties.
Other posts on gun regulation in relation to rurality are here.
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