The Frustration of Right and Wrong and Courts’ Willingness to Ignore Truth

When I read the Bruen decision, I rejoiced. It seemed pretty clear that there was a line in the sand and that most gun control laws were going to fall. There simply weren’t the historical parallels needed to justify them. Rahimi muddied the waters a fair bit, but I hoped that Bruen would be listened to and the world of gun control would change forever.

And at first, it sure looked that way. It seemed that gun control laws were falling left and right.

Now, though, we have a problem. The Ninth Circuit, for example, recently upheld a magazine ban, and it represents a real problem.

Consider the recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Duncan v. Bonta. The court decided in a 7-4 en banc decision that California’s ban on standard-capacity magazines did not violate the Constitution because it decided that magazines are not “arms” protected under the Second Amendment; they’re mere “accoutrements” despite being essential to the proper functioning of a semi-automatic firearm.

Judge Patrick Bumatay’s dissenting opinion noted that a correct application of the Bruen framework shows that because “the plain text of the Second Amendment protects the possession of magazines capable of feeding more than ten rounds, California’s ban is presumptively unconstitutional.” Likewise, he explained that California failed to overcome the presumption of unconstitutionality because it did not identify a historical analogue that was relevantly similar to California’s law, which “strictly bans the ownership, possession, and use of magazines in common use today.” Accordingly, he would hold that California’s magazine ban is unconstitutional.

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It’s not just an unwillingness to abide by established court precedents that frustrates the firearm industry when gun control advocates use the courts to advance policy agendas. It’s also some courts’ willingness to take novel approaches and engage in sophistry to arrive at their decisions. But the 9th Circuit majority acknowledged in the majority opinion that this approach won the day in Duncan.

“We readily conclude that a more nuanced approach is appropriate here. This case implicates both unprecedented societal concerns and dramatic technological changes,” wrote Judge Susan Graber for the Duncan v. Bonta majority opinion. She contended that the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen decision called for such an approach. “But, because the Court did not flesh out how the ‘more nuanced approach’ operates — for instance, whether more recent analogies should be consulted — we have taken the most conservative path in our analysis by declining to apply the more nuanced approach.”

Judge Ryan Nelson, siding with the minority, disagreed with that tact in his own dissenting opinion.

Obviously, I disagree as well, though as a layman, my opinion is meaningless to any court of law.

Still, it seems that when a court knows they’re in the wrong and they do it anyway, they’re not upholding the law like they’re supposed to. They’re simply engaging in mental gymnastics so they can advance their own political agenda through the courts.

The sophistry required to determine that magazines aren’t arms, but “accouterments” when semi-auto firearms don’t work without magazines is a prime example of the problem. They undoubtedly know this, as I have little doubt it wasn’t explained to them during arguments, but they made the decision anyway.

This is flat out wrong.

They know the law. They admit that there is a correct approach to the question they were considering. They admit that they opted not to take that correct approach. They know they’re not doing as directed by the Supreme Court. They’re just trying to twist things so that they can pretend to be in the right, and that’s the thing that infuriates me the most.

Recently, I rewatched the movie Silverado. It’s a great movie, and one line that sticks with me is when Mal, played by Danny Glover, says, “That ain’t right. I’ve had enough of what ain’t right.”

That’s where I am right now.

That’s where everyone should be with this crap.

The courts are supposed to follow the law, not manufacture excuses to ignore it.