U.S. 9th Circuit rules against 2 California pro-gun appeals

On Friday, the West Coast federal appeals court torpedoed a pair of legal challenges to California’s handgun microstamping law and a carve-out of gun free zones for retired police. The microstamping mandate, part of California’s Unsafe Handgun Act contested before a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last March, was upheld by the court in a 2-1 decision in the case of Pena v. Lindley.

Writing for the majority, Judge Margaret McKeown held the requirement only regulates commercial sales, not possession, and does not hamper the right to keep and bear arms. “[B]eing unable to purchase a subset of semiautomatic weapons, without more, does not significantly burden the right to self-defense in the home,” said McKeown, a 1998 appointment to the bench by President Clinton, to the argument by the lawsuit’s backers who stressed they were unable to buy the majority of popular new semi-auto handguns from such companies as Smith & Wesson, Ruger and Glocks as they could not pass the state’s 2013 microstamping requirement. “Indeed, all of the plaintiffs admit that they are able to buy an operable handgun suitable for self-defense — just not the exact gun they want.”