U.S. court to reconsider California ban on high-capacity magazines

[February 26, 2021]  By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court said on Thursday it will reconsider its decision that California's ban on high-capacity magazines violates the right to bear arms under the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set aside a decision made last August by a divided three-judge panel, which sided with opponents of the ban on magazines with more than 10 rounds of ammunition. An 11-judge panel will now consider the case.

Circuit Judge Kenneth Lee, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, had written for the majority that the 2017 ban may have been "well-intentioned" following a spate of "heart-wrenching and highly publicized mass shootings," but that it infringed the constitutional right to armed self-defense.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who sought a rehearing, said the state's law advanced public safety while preserving gun owners' ability to defend themselves.

Becerra also said the panel's decision conflicted with the five other federal appeals courts to consider the issue, and well as the 9th Circuit's own precedent.

President Joe Biden has nominated Becerra to serve as U.S. secretary of health and human services.

Illegal high-capacity magazines and an assault rifle along with multiple guns, ammunition are seen in this Long Beach Police Department (LBPD) photo in Long Beach, California, U.S., released on August 21, 2019. Courtesy LBPD/Handout via REUTERS

Lawyers for firearms owners opposed to the ban said the state's "draconian" ban would strip people of magazines they have owned without incident for decades.

Chuck Michel, president of the California Rifle & Pistol Association, which also challenged the ban, said it looked forward to defending the "fundamental" right of people to buy, own and use standard-capacity magazines in California.

Becerra, in a statement, called the decision to rehear the case "the next step in the defense of our state's commonsense gun laws."

A lower court judge had stayed the lifting of the ban pending the state's appeal.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Will Dunham and Aurora Ellis)

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