AMGOA Staff
Pennsylvania


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Southern District of California Federal District Court Judge Roger T. Benitez has issued an order denying the State of California's partial motion to dismiss in the case of Miller, et al. v. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, et al., an FPC-led federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of California’s “assault weapons” ban on common semi-automatic firearms. The Court's order is available online at AssaultWeaponLawsuit.com.

The order, filed today, states that, regarding the issue of standing, the "Court finds Plaintiffs have standing on all claims in large part flowing from the criminal penalties they could face." Explaining that California's Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989 "imposes a felony criminal penalty for anyone who manufactures, distributes, imports, keeps for sale, offers for sale, or lends an 'assault weapon'," with "prescribed prison sentences [of] four, six, or eight years," the Court's order said that the "result is that any law-abiding citizen may lose his liberty, and (not ironically) his Second Amendment rights, as a result of exercising his constitutional right to keep and bear arms if the arm falls within the complicated legal definition of an 'assault weapon.'" It went on, "If ever the existence of a state statute had a chilling effect on the exercise of a constitutional right, this is it."

https://www.firearmspolicy.org/miller-aw-case-motion-to-dismiss-denied