Thanks to the Supreme Court, California gun cases hinge more on history than modern threats
LOS ANGELES — To best understand California's desire to uphold its bans on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, consider recent history.
In January, a man armed with a 9 mm MAC-10 with an extended magazine, a gun prohibited under state laws, massacred 11 people and injured nine others at a Monterey Park dance studio where mostly older patrons were celebrating the Lunar New Year.
Assault-style weapons that are banned in California were also used to slaughter 19 elementary school students and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, in May, and five patrons of a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs in November. Over the last decade, the same sort of guns were used in many of the worst mass shootings in the country, mowing down high school students and teachers, concert-goers and church parishioners, nightclub patrons and county employees.
However, in the high-stakes legal battles currently being waged over California's bans in federal court — where decisions are anticipated soon — America's gruesome modern history with the powerful weapons hasn't been the focus. Instead, lawyers for the state and gun rights groups seeking to overturn the bans have been arguing over the relevance of much older laws governing very different weapons.
In the case over the assault weapons ban, recent filings have focused on a New Jersey law
