Ive always believed well-reasoned, legally justified opinions based on a foundation of Constitutional precedent, is correct even if I disagree with the policy outcome. Which is why I can say: The AR-15 ruling in California is the worst, most "desired policy" driven piece of.../1
...garbage Ive ever read. The vast majority of the decision is based not on Constitutional precedent - in fact, it *misstates* precedent right in the first paragraph - but purely on the judge's policy preference. He argues about his policy preference throughout the thing....2
...substituting his personal beliefs about the AR15, rather than law. He uses a ton of arguendo. He dismisses the issues of mass shooting by saying that, just because an AR-15 is more accurate doesnt mean mass shooters would not hit as many people with a less accurate gun...3 
...as if that has *anything* to do with law. "Meh, who knows?" is a pure Alito type argument, where facts are asserted or dismissed based on what the judge wants the outcome to be. The judge here is saying that the state has no interest in making sure targeted people are...4
...less likely to be hit because the shooter would just hit someone else. *Like not being able to aim doesn't matter.* What does that have to do with law? Then he says AR-15s are needed for home defense, as if handguns in that situation arent *significantly* more accurate...5
...in fact, since he is arguing policy and not law, he ignores that a handgun is far better for self-defense and an AR-15 is far better for mass shootings. He *repeatedly* makes it sound like, if people don't have harder-to-aim weapons, they have no means of self-defense...6
...I could go on and on. Again, 90% of this ruling is about this judge's policy preferences. He even lifts straight from the NRA one of the most meaningless pieces of arguendo, and I'm stunned it is in judicial ruling. It's the "there are no assault guns, just assault rifles...7
...in trying to make the state look stupid. (It's the "you dont even know what theyre called, so how can you ban them" argument.) This is correct in gun usage, but *literally* wrong in law. The legislature used a term and defined it specifically, extending it beyond what NRA...8
...would say constitutes an assault rifle. The legislature could have called these guns Twinkies if they wanted to, so long as they defined the term with specificity. He also transforms Scalia's key footnote in the Heller case into a nightmare. Scalia laid out that not every...9
...gun and every circumstance is necessarily covered by 2nd Amend, such as military grade weapons (which arguably the AR-15 falls into) Rather than dealing with that, the judge says "other states have AR-15s, so they're ok," as if one state's laws are determined by another's..10
...but he is nice enough to say that states can outlaw "bazookas, howitzers, or machineguns." The AR-15 is "popular" so that overrules public safety. (Marijuana is popular, porn is popular, but Ive never seen a decision that cited that in terms of judging legality). There is...11
...also that firtst paragraph where he says his the AR-15 is "at the intersection of the kinds of firearms protected under District of Columbia v. Heller and United States v Miller. " Jaw dropped on that one. Heller was about handguns, and while the ruling was correct...12
...as it applied to handguns and the DC law in question, Scalia also pulled shenanigans to get a broader finding he wanted, saying the opening clause of the 2nd Amendment had essentially no meaning, apparently being the only meaningless words in the Constitution. But...13
...then, the intersection with the *Miller*? That means nothing, and in fact, Miller goes completely in the opposite direction. It held that a rifle with a less-than 18 inch barrel *could* legally be regulated, and was not protected by the 2nd Amendment because it had no...14
...demonstrable relationship with the "well-regulated militia." Heller *reversed* key conclusions from Miller. But this judge thinks there is some intersection between a ruling about handguns and a ruling allowing for the regulation of a type of rifle. Again, this is easily...15
...the *worst* example of legislating from the bench I have ever seen. There have been examples of that on both the left and the right, but - except for Alito - most judges at least find a means of justifying them with a legal argument. Not here. And what is horrifying is...16
...that, in any time before the last 14 years, this ruling would be thrown out even by a conservative court, the "who cares about precedent? What does the RNC want?" approach of the courts these days means, in all likelihood, this piece of garbage will stand.
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