(CN) — California Attorney General Rob Bonta appealed on Monday a federal judge's ruling that the state's ban on "billy clubs" violates the Second Amendment and denies residents the right to self-defense.
Baton-like weapons, such as billy clubs — the short, wooden bats historically associated with police officers — have been outlawed for civilians in some form in California since 1923, but a pair of veterans challenged the law in a 2019 suit that criminalized the possession of what the state characterizes as "any leaded cane, or any instrument or weapon of the kind commonly known as a billy, blackjack, sandbag, sandclub, sap, or slungshot."
The attorney general cited public safety in his statement opposing the ruling.
"The decision to overturn an over 100-year-old law not only defies logic but contradicts the Supreme Court’s decision in New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen,” Bonta said in his statement. "The Supreme Court was clear that Bruen did not create a regulatory straitjacket for states — and we believe that the district court got this wrong. We will not stop in our efforts to protect the safety of communities.”
U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez initially upheld the ban in a September 2021 ruling, but the George W. Bush appointee reversed himself in on Friday, writing, "every law-abiding responsible individual citizen has a constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms like the billy for lawful purposes."
"In early America and today, the Second Amendment right of self-preservation permits a citizen to 'repel force by force’ when ‘the intervention of society in his behalf, may be too late to prevent that injury,'" he added, highlighting the historical contradictions at play in the case.
Benitez had upheld the ban in his 2021 ruling for summary judgment, in which he sided with the Golden State and found that the law qualified as a "longstanding" restriction on the weapon, beyond the reach of Second Amendment protections.
The plaintiffs appealed the decision following the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark ruling New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. After a Ninth Circuit panel review, the case was sent back down to Benitez to specifically consider the effect of Bruen on the regulations.
"What is different today is that a statute enacted in 1923 is no longer given a pass for being 'longstanding.' Important for this case, it is clear now that the critical time period is not the early twentieth century," Benitez wrote in his ruling Friday. "For this case, changing the relevant time period changes the outcome."
The critical time period, Benitez wrote, is now the years following the adoption of the Second Amendment in 1791 and the years around the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868.
The state, Benitez found, could not produce any evidence of a prohibition on billy clubs, which Benitez often called a "less lethal" weapon, during the time period from the founding of the United States to the end of the Civil War. This, he said, is the "most persuasive evidence that the original understanding of the Second Amendment protects a person’s right to keep and carry a billy."
The ruling grants summary judgment now to the plaintiffs, and places a permanent injunction on laws enforcing the criminalization of billy clubs. Bonta's appeal sends the case back to the Ninth Circuit.
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
Additional Reads
-
Weed Air April 22, 2024 -
