Important Judicial Decisions Regarding Self-Defense Law
The following legal decisions concern the law of self-defense. Some of the rulings are final and others are not. They’re presented here, along with salient excerpts, to be read for their excellent judicial logic about the absolute civil right of armed self-defense as established by the framers of the US Constitution.
[ Read the SemperVerus article, USA State Constitutions Providing for Armed Self-Defense ]
- Dissents by US Ninth Circuit Judge Ryan D. Nelson, US Ninth Circuit Judge Patrick J. Bumatay, and US Ninth Circuit Judge Lawrence J.C. VanDyke in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruling: Duncan v. Bonta (March 20, 2025) (pdf).
- This majority ruling upholds California’s ban on standard-capacity ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 cartridges. The following are excerpts of the dissents to that ruling.
- Circuit Judge R. NELSON: “[T]he majority didn’t just butcher the Second Amendment and give a judicial middle finger to the Supreme Court. It also spurned statutory procedure for en banc proceedings.”
Circuit Judge P. BUMATAY: “As a sovereign State, California may of course do what it thinks proper to protect its citizens. But what California may not do is encroach on its citizens’ constitutional rights. We cannot ignore that California’s actions continually whittle away the Second Amendment guarantee. While California may pass laws to address gun violence, California’s choices must give way to the Constitution.”
“[T]he right to keep and bear arms is a ‘fundamental right necessary to our system of ordered liberty.’”
“California calls these magazines ‘large-capacity magazines.’ That term suggests that their capacities are greater than the usual magazine. But, in truth, magazines holding more than ten rounds are the most common magazines in the country. They come standard with the most popular firearms sold nationwide. As the district court observed, ‘in the realm of firearms,’ these magazines ‘are possibly the most commonly owned thing in America.’”
“By the most conservative estimates, more than a hundred million ‘large-capacity’ magazines exist in the country today. To put it into perspective, if California’s law applied nationwide, then half of all magazines in the United States would be taken from nearly 40 million Americans. And so these magazines should be more accurately termed ‘standard-capacity magazines.’ Simply put, the ban deprives Californians of the most popular firearm magazines for self-defense and other lawful purposes.”
“Nothing in the historical understanding of the Second Amendment warrants California’s magazine ban.”
“[N]either the text of the Second Amendment nor our country’s historical tradition of firearm regulation supports California’s magazine ban. Still, the majority once again upholds California’s regulation. In doing so, the majority defies the Supreme Court.”
“[T]his is now the third time we’ve had to warn against the majority’s violation of Supreme Court instructions. We sound the alarm yet again—but this time, it’s more dire given the extreme nature of the majority’s ruling. Its implications are vast and lead to a dangerous expansion of government power….Adhering to the Second Amendment’s text and historical understanding, California’s magazine ban is unconstitutional.”
“Magazines—whether they hold ten rounds, more than ten rounds, or fewer than ten rounds—are unquestionably “Arms” under the Second Amendment.”
“Although the majority begrudgingly concedes that magazines are generally protectable ‘Arms’ and that ‘large-capacity’ magazines ‘enhance…a person’s ability…to defend” himself,…it nonetheless excludes the ‘large-capacity’ magazine from the protection of the Second Amendment. And it does so using questionable reasoning.”
“[T]he magazines California bans are the furthest thing from highly unusual in modern America. In fact, firearms with magazines holding more than ten rounds are the overwhelming choice of Americans for self-defense and other lawful purposes. While estimates vary, easily more than 100 million of these magazines exist in the country. According to one estimate, these magazines account for half of all American magazines—that’s 115 million out of 230 million magazines in circulation today.”
“In sum, the right to keep and bear firearms that use a magazine able to hold more than ten rounds is presumptively protected by the text of the Second Amendment. These magazines constitute ‘Arms’ because they are necessary components of firearms and facilitate the firing process.”
“At each step of this case, the majority has made clear its disdain for the Supreme Court’s Heller-McDonald-Bruen Rahimi jurisprudence….Because California’s magazine ban violates the Second Amendment’s text, history, and tradition, we respectfully dissent”
Circuit Judge L. VANDYKE: “[W]hether a firearm component is an inherent and ‘necessary’ part of the arm itself, or instead merely an ‘optional’ and unnecessary accessory to the arm, is a hopelessly indeterminable and inadministrable distinction.”
“Initially, I planned to explain my reasons for dissenting on this conceptual point through usual judicial means alone: describing in writing some real-world illustrations to explain how the majority’s supposed ‘arms–accessory’ distinction collapses. But at argument it became clear to me that a visual illustration would greatly aid my colleagues and the parties in better grasping how this rather obvious conceptual problem specifically applies to firearms. So instead of straining to use written words to explain the many different parts of a gun and how each part could easily be deemed an ‘accessory’ under the majority’s vacuous test, I have decided to deliver part of my dissent in this case orally—via video—under the established wisdom that showing is sometimes more effective than telling:”
“Just as the First Amendment doesn’t apply only to ‘necessary’ or ‘essential’ speech, the Second Amendment cannot apply only to firearms containing just those parts that a state like California deems essential and necessary.”
“[T]he written portion of my dissent makes the same conceptual argument as the video: it talks about the same firearms parts except in written form. Yet the majority has never complained that the written portion of my dissent ‘includes facts outside the record.’ The difference between the two formats (written and video) is not the supposed factual content, but rather that for some reason the video format is harder to ignore. So the majority has fabricated a sham procedural reason to justify ignoring it anyway.”
“[T]he majority’s rationale in this case, followed to its (il)logical conclusion, means that now—perhaps even more so than before Bruen—only the jankiest guns are even facially protected by the Second Amendment. And even those can be banned outright consistent with the Second Amendment so long as the government can find a historical analogue with the flimsiest connection to the challenged law….. [T]his court once
again improves its undefeated record against the Second Amendment, demonstrating both its misunderstanding of firearms and its disdain for the People’s constitutional right to have them in the process.”*
[ Read the SemperVerus article, US Circuit Judge Video Records Expert Gun Tutorial Dissent to Anti-2nd Amendment Court Ruling ]
- US District Court for the District of Maine ruling: Andrea Beckwith, et al. v. Aaron Frey, Attorney General of Maine (February 13, 2025) by Chief US District Judge Lance E. Walker (pdf).
- This ruling grants a preliminary injunction blocking Maine’s 72-hour waiting period law for firearm purchases.
“The acquisition of firearms is covered by the Second Amendment’s plain text.”
“If a citizen cannot take possession of a firearm then his or her right to possess a firearm or to carry it away is indeed curtailed….Acquiring a firearm is a necessary step in the exercise of keeping and bearing a firearm. Any interpretation to the contrary requires the type of interpretative jui jitsu that would make Kafka blush.”
“Firearms have always been articles of commerce. There is nothing novel or nefarious about that basic reality that would warrant torturing the concepts of keeping, bearing, or carrying to exclude from their meaning the acquisition or purchase of a firearm.”
“Because the act of acquiring a firearm, including by purchase, falls within the ambit of what it means to keep and bear arms, it is presumptively protected by the Second Amendment.”
“[S]tatutory disarmament in the absence of individual cause is inimical to our Nation’s history and traditions. It is to the Second Amendment what a prior restraint is to the First. I have little trouble finding irreparable injury in this context. As with cases involving the First Amendment, even a temporary deprivation results in irreparable injury.” *
[ Get the SemperVerus booklet, The Case for Biblical Self-Defense ]
