Update: The California Attorney General’s office now admits that magazines are flooding the California market and represent
“an unacceptable danger to public safety.”
The AG’s office has set a deadline of 5 PM today for the judge to rule on the stay, or they will go to the Ninth Circuit Court to file for an emergency stay.
CEO of Michel & Associates, P.C., C.D. Michel, told AmmoLand that they are trying to “put the genie back in the bottle,” and expressed doubts that the AG’s office actually thought that no magazines were coming into the state.
San Diego, Calif. –-(Ammoland.com)-The plaintiff in the California magazine limitation case has cited an AmmoLand article as exhibit one in their response to California Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s petition for a stay of the judge’s decision.
Last Friday, San Diego-based U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez declared that laws limiting magazine size violate the Second Amendment. He cited multiple home invasions that were stopped by citizens using magazines holding more than ten rounds. He pointed out that guns are more likely to be used in self-defense than in mass shootings which he called exceedingly rare”.
“Individual liberty and freedom are not outmoded concepts,” Judge Benitez wrote in his decision.
Almost immediately online retailers resumed shipping magazines to the Golden State for the first time since the year 2000. California residents started buying up magazines by the dozens. Servers even crashed due to the expanded workload.
AG Becerra vowed to fight the ruling even if it required going all the way to the Supreme Court. The first stop would be the very left-leaning Ninth Circuit Court. He expressed the need to prevent sales to residents of California.
On April 1st counsel for the AG, John D. Echeverria, called the law firm of Michel & Associates, P.C. and left a voicemail stating that they planned to seek a stay of the court ruling striking down what the judge called an unconstitutional magazine ban.
Echeverria did get in touch with Sean Brady, who is the co-counsel in the case to discuss the matter. Later that day on a conference call Echeverria confirm that he would be filing an ex parte application with the Court. The stay would be against the court’s ruling legalizing magazines holding more than ten rounds.
In an ex parte application hearing, only the side that is making the request is represented. The defendant wants the stay to last until the state’s appeal could be heard by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The plaintiffs filed an opposition to the stay.
In their ex parte application, the defendant included a post to social media made by Palmetto State Armory.
In that post, PSA said, “We are getting prepared to send a whole lot of freedom to our friends in California. #ShallNotBeInfringed #2A.”
The plaintiffs argue in their response that if the courts issue the stay, it would adversely affect the residents of the state that had already ordered magazines from online retailers. It would turn these California residents into criminals overnight. Police could charge these law abiding citizens with a crime and legally punish them severely.
In a somewhat surprising move, the defendants tried to argue there is no evidence that anyone in California had purchased magazines online since companies started selling to the people of the sate. The law firm of Michel & Associates, P.C. cited an article that I wrote for AmmoLand.
In the article, I contacted multiple retailers including Brownells, Rainier Arms, and Natchez Shooters Supplies about the rush in magazine sales to California. All the retailers confirmed that they had seen a substantial spike in sales due to orders for these now legal magazines from people in California.
Rainier Arms saw such a spike that it crashed their payment processor’s server. Natchez Shooters Supplies had to redo their email advertisement because from the time they started to sell to California to the time they were able to complete the email they had sold out of many different magazines.
I also contact residents of the state that confirmed that they had been buying up magazines for all different type of guns. A quick internet search of forums from California shows that residents are buying these magazines in large quantities.
DECLARATION OF ANNA M. BARVIR in VIRGINIA DUNCAN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. XAVIER BECERRA, by AmmoLand Shooting Sports News on Scribd
AmmoLand wasn’t the only media source cited by the plaintiff. The plaintiff’s opposition also mentioned an article written by Christina Fan of ABC 30. Fan contacted a local shooting range that was having issues getting magazine due to the rush of Californian’s buying them up in bulk. Both articles seemed to dispute Echeverria’s claim that there is no evidence that the people of California are purchasing the magazines.
AmmoLand reached out to California Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s office and Michel & Associates, P.C for comment, but have not received a response at the time of this writing.
About John Crump
John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. He is the former CEO of Veritas Firearms, LLC and is the co-host of The Patriot News Podcast which can be found at www.blogtalkradio.com/patriotnews. John has written extensively on the patriot movement including 3%’ers, Oath Keepers, and Militias. In addition to the Patriot movement, John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and is currently working on a book on leftist deplatforming methods and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, on Facebook at realjohncrump, or at www.crumpy.com.