From the Second Amendment Foundation . . .

The California Attorney General’s office has stepped away from defending the constitutionality of the state’s new “fee shifting” law related to legal challenges of gun laws, and as a result, Gov. Gavin Newsom has hired a private law firm to intervene in two legal actions, Miller v. Bonta and South Bay Rod & Gun Club, Inc., v. Bonta. The defendants’ supplemental brief may be read here.

Miller v. Bonta is a case brought by the Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc., and several other plaintiffs. Rob Bonta is California’s attorney general. South Bay Rod & Gun Club, Inc. v. Bonta is a case brought by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, California Rifle & Pistol Association and several other plaintiffs. Both cases are in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. 

Attorneys for both legal actions received word from Newsom’s attorney the Attorney General’s office had advised the governor “that it did not intend to defend the validity” of the contested section of the law. SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb said this unusual development suggests the state’s position is in trouble. 

“As noted in the defendant’s supplemental brief to the federal court,” Gottlieb said, “the Attorney General ‘is not in a position to defend the merits of a provision that is indistinguishable in relevant part from a provision that he has opined is unconstitutional.’ Bonta is in something of an embarrassing bind. He can’t defend a law that is nearly a mirror image of a Texas statute he has already declared is unconstitutional.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how the governor’s attorney will defend a law California’s attorney general has essentially declared bogus by its similarity to another state’s law he stated is unconstitutional,” Gottlieb said.

The Attorney General’s supplemental brief informing the court that they will not defend the statute clearly acknowledges California’s statute was “a reaction to” the Texas law, which deals with abortion. In an attempt to retaliate, Newsom has tried to penalize gun rights groups, plaintiffs and their attorneys.

“This is what happens when you try to be too clever by half by using low-caliber legal arguments.” Gottlieb said. 

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

20 COMMENTS

  1. “low-caliber” ?

    Given this is a “gun” case (2A related case), is pun intended with “low-caliber” ?

  2. Since newsom’s sleazy Gun Control agenda is rooted in racism and genocide means his game rules come from the democRat Party Jim Crow Gun Control Playbook and hitler’s Mein Kampf.

    • This particular law is rooted in neither. The law in question shifts all costs, including attorney’s fees, to a plaintiff who is not successful on EVERY cause of action asserted against the State challenging gun laws on various legal grounds. The law thus provides that even if Plaintiff succeeds in overturning the law on 3 out of 4 grounds, the failure to win the 4th ground entitles the state to seek its attorneys fees and costs as the “prevailing party” even though it ultimately lost the case. It was modeled on a new Texas statute that was designed to discourage suits against the new Texas anti-abortion law.

      I wonder who the state hired to defend the law. Perhaps Eric Holder?

      • I’m actually good with the concept of “looser pays”. However, if that is going to apply to government as well, then a cap will have to be applied to the amount of tax payer dollars (Including in-kind) contributions the government is allowed to spend. also, it would need to apply to the totality of the court costs. So, we lose at court, then at appeal, then win at the supremes, they pay all the back court costs?

        Be interesting to see if Newsome agrees with that

  3. Is that really a STEN laying on the table in front of him? I’ve shot them. I always thought they were a cooler version of an M-3.

    • The little that I can see of the brown one does look like a STEN.

      It’s not impossible, for years you could buy parts kits from ads in the back of the Shogun News for something like 75 bucks…

      • You can still get them, along with new 80% tubes to convert them to a closed bolt SA, if you care at all about your future freedom. They are a smaller I.D. which prevents the original open bolt from being used.

        Or 80% original tubes if you don’t. Same with the Sterling’s, if you want a more reliable design, which are quite fun in some hot Tok. On your own with the conversion tho, best to start out with a SA only Mk.VI kit if you can find one.

        Either looks goofy with a 16″ barrel. Get the stamps, because you might as well suppress them anyway so they don’t look retarded.

    • They are, but the M-3 is less FTF prone. If insisting on the St3n, Mk. V is far better than earlier variants.

      That said, the Sterling is the best in breed, and not simply for it’s roller follower mag4azine which eliminates all feed issues.

    • STEN was my first…remarkedly accurate for two-groove rifling…could hit a clay pigeon at 50 yds every time…did have a little headspace problem…[mushrooming cases]…that was easily cured with a drill press….gun was simple, cheap and easy to work on…kind of sorry I sold it but I got a decent price….not great, just decent….

  5. The rack to his left contains two rifles that appear to be lawful under California’s assault weapons law, a Ruger Mini-14 and an AR type rifle with a Thordsen type stock. I assume that these are simply a display of weapons seized during drug/gang raids.

      • “On what planet is an SKS an ” assaulty ” rifle?”

        Planet California, of course… 😉

        • It is in Washington state also. Washington doesn’t prohibit deadly “assault rifles” but does regulate them more tightly. Stupid Washington calls all semiautomatic rifles “assault rifles”.

          They even include tube fed .22s like the Marlin 60 as assault rifles. I certainly wouldn’t want to be the guy storming the beach at Normandy carrying the tube fed .22lr. 😂

  8. Is this the same prick that instructed his minions to reduce criminal charges to illegals so they aren’t unfairly treated? California is another planet that I wish would leave the solar system.

  9. So the head lawmind Bonta says the law is no good. But Newsom decides to get his lawyers on the case. Who is paying for Newsom’s lawyers?
    Bonta says it is unconstitutional, he’s the chief lawmind, and that should be it.
    Hopefully, the people of the State are not on the hook, and if Newsome is fighting it with his lawyers wouldn’t he be fighting as a private citizen? Leaving hisself open for suit then?

  10. Guys, leave California, and Governor Hair Gel, alone. They are far along in the process of COMPLETELY destroying any credibility that might remain in the demented doctrine of “Progressivism”, also known as “Leftist fascism”. By the time that hair-gelled idiot is done, not even a moron like MinorLiar will be able to defend Leftist/fascism with a straight face (well, maybe MinorLiar IS that stupid, I dunno!).

    California went from an ALLEGED $95billion “surplus” (ONLY by using ‘government accounting’; everyone in California knows that CalPers alone is well over a trillion dollars in the hole by ANY rational actuarial standards) to a $25 billion deficit in ONE YEAR (again, this is using ‘government accounting’ – which any company, private or public, would by committing fraud by using).

    Between Governor Hair Gel, his idiot Soros prosecutors, his insane super-majority Dimocrat legislature, an absurd number of idiot Mayors (SF, LA, Oakland, Santa Barbara, Monterey, San Diego, etc.), they have completely ruined and bankrupted a once-prosperous, rationally-run state. And to prove I am NOT a brainless partisan idiot (like MinorLiar), I would submit that one of the best governors in my lifetime (although corrupt as hell) was Edmund G. “Pat” Brown (father of that other major idiot, Governor Moonbeam) – a lifelong Democrat. Pat Brown at least supported and improved the California State College and University of California systems, and actually spent money on REAL infrastructure (i.e., ROAD and DAMS).

    Now California is a sick, expiring, bankrupt, corrupt hulk. California’s once-famous agricultural sector is a pathetic shell of its former self, all to save a useless little fish that no one ever heard of and NO ONE cares about. I am enjoying watching the state melt down, from far away. And I was born there, and loved the state most of the time I lived there. Now I can’t stand that open-air insane asylum, and will NEVER go back.

Comments are closed.