“Likely?”
The article gives no indication of the procedural posture of the case, so the statement “likely” is meaningless.
IF someone had sued to enjoin enforcement of the law pending a full trial, then “likely unconstitutional” might be a basis for suspending the law until a final determination could be made. In which case “likely” is “good enough for now.” It gets the job done for now.
But the article provides no context. Even a judge who KNOWS that a law is SLAM DUNK unconstitional is not going to go any further than “likely” when that is all that is needed to suspend it pending further legal action.
Of course we have no way of knowing if that is what was happening based on this article.
The article is just clear enough to stall for time, giving the Lefty respondents a heads up and time to gather their strike forces.
“... then “likely unconstitutional” might be a basis for suspending the law until a final determination could be made. In which case “likely” is “good enough for now.” It gets the job done for now.”
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Thanks for the explanation and detail. Well, it would be nice to see the anti-Constitution radicals of California’s system suffer a setback to their anti-gun agenda. Hopefully it will go to the courts. May be moot if the honest judges can be found in this state that will uphold the law, instead of changing it from the bench.
On the other hand, at least this did give enough info to get some intel using the google. There’s a good discussion over at Volokh’s:
http://www.volokh.com/2013/12/09/10-day-gun-waiting-period-potentially-unconstitutional/