Appeals court tosses out California's high-capacity gun magazine ban

A California appeals court on Friday struck down the state's ban on high-capacity gun magazines, ruling that such regulations run afoul of the Second Amendment's guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms. 

Gun control activists in recent years have advocated, and at times succeeded in, banning the sale or possession of gun magazines with higher capacities. A "magazine" is a spring-loaded box that automatically loads a new round into a semiautomatic gun's chamber after a bullet is fired from the gun itself. 

California since 2000 has banned the sale and purchase of magazines holding more than 10 rounds. Friday's ruling at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals stuck down that regulation. 

"Even well-intentioned laws must pass constitutional muster,” Judge Kenneth Lee wrote in the ruling, stating that the law “strikes at the core of the Second Amendment — the right to armed self-defense.”

"California’s law imposes a substantial burden on this right to self-defense," Lee continued. "The ban makes it criminal for Californians to own magazines that come standard in Glocks, Berettas, and other handguns that are staples of self- defense."

Gov. Gavin Newsom, meanwhile, defended the 20-year-old law, calling it "sound" and "right." California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, meanwhile, said his office "remains committed to using every tool possible to defend California’s gun safety laws and keep our communities safe."

The Supreme Court declared in 2008 that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to firearm ownership, a ruling that gun control advocates claimed upended years of jurisprudence but which gun rights activists said was in line with the original intent of the constitutional provision.

In 2010, meanwhile, the Court ruled further that the Second Amendment was enforceable through the states via the Fourteenth Amendment.