A full summary will come from CRPA tomorrow, but some highlights from today's Rhode (ammunition background checks) hearing
- Benitez repeatedly questioned the DOJ attorneys on why they think old racist laws are relevant to the modern ammunition background check. They said that while they don't endorse the racism, the laws stand for the proposition that there is a tradition of barring people perceived to be dangerous from owning guns. Benitez seemed unsatisfied with this answer. (As he should be, the "how" is totally different, it's not relevantly similar).
- Benitez was also unimpressed with the State's insistence on submitting expert declarations. He says he's not sure why their historians can better explain a historical law with a clear meaning, like the racist laws (he really kept bringing these up - I now expect it to be a big theme of his rulings in these cases). The State submitted hundreds of laws in its survey, and he's skeptical there are more to find. Nevertheless, he gave them a month to submit expert declarations, perhaps to avoid the 9th circuit kicking it back to him again.
- Standing was a big argument today, and apparently what the State is going to push. I.e., if you manage to get through the process even with difficulty, no standing. Of course, there is still standing because of the fees, waits for some people, and out-of-state ammo purchases.
- That last point was apparently a big one for Benitez. He talked about how he used to go bird hunting in Arizona, and would often buy extra ammo while there but wouldn't shoot all the shells, and would bring the remainder back home. Did the state expect him to drive to a California gun store upon his return to do a background check on that ammo? It was here I spoke up and corrected him
- if he crossed the border with ammo bought in AZ, he'd be breaking the law. He'd actually have to ship it from AZ to a CA FFL, and pick it up from them. (This seemed to make him even more insistent on this point).
- Benitez also brought up how a regular driver's license isn't enough, you need the costlier "Real ID" one. He asked the DOJ attorneys how fast they thought the 9th circuit would overturn a law that blocked people from voting unless they had "Real ID". (They wisely dodged).
- Benitez implied he'd be OK with the background check as originally envisioned by Prop 63, the version in which you'd get a permit card renewable every five years and use that to buy ammo. He believes Bruen footnote 9 would allow that. But the version CA immediately changed that too (because Prop 63 allows the legislature to modify it with just 55% of the vote) created this far more burdensome system we now have in which you do a NICS check each and every time you buy ammo, complete with a face-to-face requirement (so online ammo must be shipped to an FFL).
Oh and one last one:
- The record in Rhode from years ago indicated that the DOJ background check denied a lot more people wrongly than it did correctly. That said, there were around 700 people who were denied who were indeed prohibited people who tried to buy ammo. Benitez asked the DOJ lawyers whether the State had arrested/prosecuted any of those people. They had no answer on that, but it's something he wants to know going forward.
(I think the idea here is that if they didn't even bother going after most of these people, then the law clearly just harasses the law-abiding more than it's about stopping criminals)