Written by Sasha Reva
This Wednesday, The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in Jones v. Bonta. The vote was 2-1, which now means that persons over the age of 18, who lives in California, will be able to purchase a handgun without licenses.
Matthew Jones, who is a resident of San Diego and was twenty at the time, brought the suit along with the Firearms Policy Coalition after the CA State Legislature passed SB 1100 in 2019.
Judge Ryan D. Nelson gave his opinion on the ruling, “young adults have Second Amendment protections as persons who are part of a national community.”
The decision was about a 100-pages long, with the decision going into detail about the history of youth owning weapons and cited the Supreme Court’s landmark gun rights case District of Columbia v. Heller. The Ninth Circuit reversed the ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. Both of the judges that wrote the majority opinion were appointed by Trump and the one that voted against them was appointed by Clinton.
The ruling is a big defeat for California Democrats. Gavin Newsom was the one that signed the law “ banning persons under 21 years of age from purchasing centerfire semi-automatic weapons” when he got appointed in his first year. Newsom’s appointee, Attorney General Robert Bonta, said “California will continue to take all necessary steps to prevent and reduce gun violence.” Gavin Newson didn’t give any comments on the decision.
Photo Cred: Shuttershock
