The American debate over the legality of modern gun laws was at issue again

this week

in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals

,this week,

where an eleven-judge panel paused on a decision striking down California’s ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines.

Last month, a lower federal court judge struck down that ban as unconstitutional. On Tuesday, the larger en banc panel stayed that decision, leaving it ineffective pending an appeal by the state.

The decision divided the justices along ideological lines. The court’s liberal majority ruled that the state of California had presented “strong arguments” as to why the ban on ammunition magazines containing more than ten rounds is constitutional. Even under a new, stricter test for gun laws set by the U.S. Supreme Court last year,

the lawyers noted that the state will probably win the appeal.

The majority wrote that California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office had presented evidence that large-capacity magazines “pose a significant threat to public safety,” and that an “influx” of such magazines would occur without interruption. The lawyers added that such a delay would have “no effect” on the public’s ability to purchase a “wide range of firearms, as much ammunition as they want, and an unlimited number of magazines holding ten rounds or less.” ”

The majority also wrote that “the public interest outweighs a stay” as “mass shootings almost always involve high-capacity magazines.”

The panel’s conservative minority, in dissent, called their majority colleagues’ position “laughably absurd” and part of a pattern of decisions by liberal 9th ​​Circuit lawyers that “has given governments a blank check to allow firearms on limit in any way you wish’.

Judge Patrick J. Bumatay, a Trump-appointed judge, accused the liberal majority of ignoring not only the U.S. Constitution but also the U.S. Supreme Court’s clear guidance on how to properly analyze restrictions on the Second Amendment in his decision last year years in the New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn. vs. Bruen.

In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that modern gun laws must be deeply rooted in American history or tradition, or analogous to a historical law, to be constitutional.

Many experts saw the decision as an end to the kinds of considerations expressed by the Liberal majority in Tuesday’s decision, such as whether modern gun restrictions serve the public interest by preventing things like devastating mass shootings.

Instead, they said, under the Bruen decision, courts could only assess the constitutionality of a modern law by deciding whether it is sufficiently analogous to a historic gun law, even if the weapons in question are entirely modern inventions.

The Liberal majority in their Tuesday decision found that courts across the country have similarly ruled on preliminary rulings in high-capacity magazine cases since the Bruen decision, but have not engaged in any historical analysis suggested by Bruen.

Bumatay, along with the panel’s other conservative justices, blasted the majority for not providing a clearer explanation for their view that the state was likely to win its appeal under Bruen.

The majority decision left “no serious engagement with the text of the Second Amendment,” Bumatay wrote. ‘No struggle with historical analogues. not put the burden on California to prove the constitutionality of its law.”

“The Constitution and Californians deserve better,” Bumatay wrote.

Chuck Michel, president and general counsel of the California Rifle & Pistol

Assoc. Assn.

, is one of the plaintiffs in the case. He said in a statement that he was disappointed by the court’s “misinterpretation of the Bruen ruling” but was “confident that the mandates of the Constitution and the Bruen decision will ultimately prevail.”

He said his group “will continue to defend the rights of gun owners in California all the way to the Supreme Court.”

Bonta said in his own statement that he was “relieved that the court took into account the public safety of Californians in its ruling.”

“The stay remains in place California’s restrictions on high-capacity magazines, a key part of our efforts to combat gun violence,” he said. “Californians need to know that purchasing, manufacturing

,

or transfer of large capacity magazines is against the law.”

Bonta said the Supreme Court was clear in its Bruen decision that Bruen “does not create a regulatory straitjacket for states and that cases must be judged based on the text of the Second Amendment and its history and tradition of regulation,” and that his office “will continue to fight for California’s authority to protect our communities from gun advancements that cause mass casualties.”

The en banc panel took up the case after U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez of San Diego ruled in September that the ban is unconstitutional.

“This case concerns a California state law that makes it a crime to retain and carry common firearm magazines normally possessed for lawful purposes,” Benitez wrote in his decision. “Based on the text, history and tradition of the Second Amendment, this law is clearly unconstitutional.”

It was the second time Benitez overturned the law, the first since the Bruen decision was issued. Benitez has a history of overturning gun laws in the state.

The liberal en banc majority consisted of two Obama appointees and five Clinton appointees. In addition to Bumatay, who dissented, there were two other Trump appointees and an appointee of George W. Bush.

Judge Ryan D. Nelson, a Trump appointee, also wrote his own dissent, criticizing the procedures used by the En Banc panel to hear the case.