Rupp v. Becerra: Defending California’s Assault Weapon Restrictions
Update — On July 22, 2019, the district court issued a favorable decision rejecting the NRA’s challenge to California’s assault weapon regulations, siding with the position Giffords Law Center argued for in our amicus brief.
Case information: Rupp et al. v. Becerra et al., No. 18:17-cv-00746-JLS-JDE (C.D. Cal. brief filed April 1, 2019)
At issue: In 2017 the California state affiliate of the NRA and several individual plaintiffs filed a lawsuit raising Second Amendment and other constitutional challenges to California’s Assault Weapon Control Act (“the Act”). Plaintiffs claim that the Act violates the Second Amendment because they have a constitutional right to possess military-style semiautomatic assault rifles like those used to carry out the Newtown, Orlando, Las Vegas, and Parkland mass shootings (and many more).
Giffords Law Center’s Brief: Our brief argues that the California legislature acted constitutionally by prohibiting a subset of semiautomatic rifles whose add-on military features make these weapons uniquely dangerous and facilitate criminal use and mass killings. We further argue that the Second Amendment, as interpreted by the Supreme Court and other courts, does not protect a right to own weapons that were designed for a battlefield, not responsible self-defense in the home. Indeed, every court to have considered challenges to laws banning assault weapons since the Supreme Court’s decisions in Heller and McDonald has upheld those laws.