Brown Sides with Calif. SC to Uphold Assault Weapons Ban
2002/4/22
Justices Uphold State's Assault Weapons Ban
By MAURA DOLAN, Times Legal Affairs Writer
SAN FRANCISCO--The California Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the state's 1989 assault weapons ban, the first such prohibition of semiautomatic assault weapons in the nation.
The strongest weapons ban in the nation, the law bars about 75 models of firearms and allows judges to add new ones to the list as makers design modifications. A Court of Appeal in Sacramento decided two years ago that the add-on provision violated separation of powers between the Legislature and the judiciary.
But none of the state's seven high court justices agreed. "For good or ill," wrote Justice Janice Rogers Brown for the court, "the Legislature stood up and was counted on this issue, one of the most contentious in modern society."
In her opinion for the court majority, Brown strongly rejected any suggestion that the state Constitution protects the rights of Californians to own weapons.
"No mention is made [in the state Constitution] of a right to bear arms," Brown wrote.
The court majority also rejected the challenge that the law was invalid because it failed to ban all similar weapons.
"Doubtless, 10 years after Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act became law in California, many semiautomatic weapons potentially classifiable as assault weapons remain on the market here," Brown wrote.
"That may or may not be regrettable, depending upon one's view of this highly charged public policy question," Brown added, "but it does not amount to a constitutionally fatal flaw."
Well, does the Cali constitution include a right to bear arms or not? If not, didn't she correctly interpret California law? If the law violates a federally protected right, then isn't that up to a federal court to decide? Where did she err?
"No mention is made [in the state Constitution] of a right to bear arms," Brown wrote.
Damn. Just damn.
FMCDH(BITS)