SAN DIEGO, CA –-(Ammoland.com)- Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced the filing of an amended complaint and new motion for a preliminary injunction in the case of Matthew Jones, et al. v. Attorney General Xavier Becerra, et al., a federal Second Amendment challenge to California’s ban on gun purchases by legal adults under age 21. The court filings are available online at www.firearmspolicy.org/jones.
“Mere months after Senator Anthony Portantino’s unconstitutional SB 1100 (2018) ban went into effect, Governor Newsom signed Senator Portantino’s SB 61 (2019) to further ensure that law-abiding legal adults are denied their fundamental human rights,” said the plaintiffs’ attorney, John Dillon. “We filed the amended complaint and a new motion for preliminary injunction to address the expanded scope of California’s unconstitutional and discriminatory age-based gun control scheme enforced against young legal adults and licensed dealers.”
“The law-abiding young adults I represent are not violent felons, mentally ill, or of any other class of historically disarmed persons. Their right to keep and bear arms should be restored by the Court,” continued Dillon. “Our motion makes clear that there is no historical support for age-based firearms restrictions on adults in the United States. Evidence also shows that age-based firearms restrictions have no effect on reducing homicides, suicides, or mass shootings. The State’s reasoning for such an unlawful ban relies on speculation and conjecture, its hatred of gun owners, and a dangerous desire to write out the Constitution where it disagrees with the State’s policy preferences.”
FPC Director of Research Joseph Greenlee explained further. “The Supreme Court made clear in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) that the Second Amendment’s scope is defined by the understanding of the right at the time of its ratification. When the Second Amendment was ratified, virtually every male (and some females) in the country between 18 and 21 was required to own firearms,” he said. “Moreover, by the time of ratification, there had been hundreds of laws throughout the colonies mandating gun ownership among these young adults, and no law prohibiting it. Thus, 18-to-20-year-olds are protected by the Second Amendment, and any law prohibiting them from acquiring firearms violates their rights.”
The motion’s more than 2,000 pages of declaratory testimony and exhibits include the scholarship and research of attorney, historian, and legal scholar David T. Hardy; economist and crime researcher John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center; and sociologist, researcher, and retired attorney, Thomas B. Marvell, who authored the study, “The Impact of Banning Juvenile Gun Possession,” published in the Journal of Law and Economics (Vol. 44, Oct. 2001, pp. 691-713).
The plaintiffs in the case are Matthew Jones, an adult under the age of 21; Thomas Furrh, an adult under the age of 21; Kyle Yamamoto, an adult under the age of 21; PWGG, L.P. (D.B.A. Poway Weapons And Gear and PWG Range); North County Shooting Center, Inc.; Beebe Family Arms and Munitions LLC (D.B.A. BFAM and Beebe Family Arms and Munitions); Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC); Firearms Policy Foundation (FPF); California Gun Rights Foundation (CGF, formerly known at The Calguns Foundation); and Second Amendment Foundation (SAF).
Firearms Policy Coalition (www.firearmspolicy.org) is a 501(c)4 grassroots nonprofit organization. FPC’s mission is to defend the People’s rights, especially the human right to keep and bear arms, promote individual liberty, and restore freedom.
Background
- California law prohibits law-abiding adults aged 18-to-20 from acquiring any firearm (Penal Code section 27510(a)-(b)).
- FPC, FPF, CGF, SAF, and individuals aged 18-to-20 brought this action, Jones, et al. v Becerra, et al., alleging that the prohibition violates the Second and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.
- Plaintiffs seek a temporary and permanent injunction to enjoin the defendants from enforcing the prohibition, so young adults can acquire firearms and exercise their Second Amendment rights.
About Firearms Policy Coalition
Firearms Policy Coalition (www.firearmspolicy.org) is a 501(c)4 grassroots nonprofit organization. FPC’s mission is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, especially the fundamental, individual Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
USA, But Cali and many, many other states do not care what SCOTUS says if it runs counter to their desire to rule and ultimately destroy this country. The only solution at this point is Balkanization of the US, and then we can watch them destroy themselves. There is no fixing this and alot of people know it.
If you’re old enough to pay taxes, or be qualified to operate million dollar equipment in the military, you’re old enough to pursuit the same Constitutionally guaranteed rights that all adults enjoy. Serve not Rule..
Boomsticks for all mankind.
Every right to arms oppressive act written by our governments should be challenged in court. The courts are meant to be a separate and independent branch of our government. The purpose of our courts is assure the compliance to our constitution in order to defend against oppressive government. Our courts have been more of extension than an independent branch of an oppressive government. Still the more court challenges the better. If an 18 year old is allowed to be ordered to risk their life and to kill; than they have the protected right to acquire and possess their own firearms:… Read more »
So at eighteen I can serve my country in the military in order kill the enemy by whatever means necessary, but I can’t own a firearm? Where’s Rambo when you need him? (Not that liberal POS Stallone, but Rambo!) It’s job number one that these assholes on the left find evermore ways to erode our right to keep and bear arms, and this is them in action doing just that. For every government body that’s used to invade the rights of our Constitution, it’s opposite needs to be set in motion right next door to counter them. If they can… Read more »
@yzman, Are you the same guy that wrote, “… The bump stock took a normal semi-automatic rifle, and literally turned it into a mass kill machine. While the rounds it throws downrange is less than a full auto weapon set for rock-n-roll, as I have shot in the military, it nonetheless affords the bearer nearly the same kill power. What next: 40mm grenade launchers, as based on right of a well regulated militia to keep and bear arms? Somewhere, just somewhere, we have got to regulate ourselves, …”?
Does someone else have access to your computer?
Wild Bill — I am. I see the bump stock, as used in Las Vegas to massacre so many people so fast, as affording the citizenship too much firepower, as it imitates the kill factor of auto fire on a weapon of war. I am not a proponent of just because it’s made for a gun, that it should necessarily be legal. Again, just because you can attach a 40mm grenade launcher to an AR15 (some people are just that inventive!) does not mean that it goes without saying. Some day soon we will be able to attach things to… Read more »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0vpzpjKVsw
🙂
Stwayne I already have an attachment on all my guns that allows me to kill only a select group of my choosing. It’s my brain, and its guided by my moral compass. It actually works pretty well. Except that one time when I took shot gun Joe Bidens advice and just fired my twelve gauge through the door when I heard what I thought was an intruder on my front porch. Turns out it was my neighbor coming to ask to borrow some vice grips. In my defense though he’d already borrowed my channel locks a week before and never… Read more »
@Klim, Well said and funny, too!
@yzman, You hold two positions that can not be reconciled. Protecting citizens’ ability to keep and bear weapons of war was what the founders’ intended and that is not in despite. See US v Miller.
Americans own tanks, fighter aircraft, and crew served artillery, buy you would deny them a bump stock?
The issue is not merely “legal”. The issue is Constitutional.
Who decides what is insanity?
The founders were quite aware of multiple round firearms.
What firearms, in your opinion, are clearly Constitutional?
Should be “… not in despite…” I don’t know why spell check changed it. My apologies.
Fact Check: The Founding Fathers *DID* Know About Repeating Rifles August 27, 2019 by Logan Metesh Many people try to claim that the Founding Fathers couldn’t have conceived of repeating rifles when they drafted the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights. However, the story of Joseph Belton and his correspondence with the Continental Congress proves otherwise. Belton, an inventor and gunsmith from Philadelphia, claimed to have devised a new form of flintlock musket that was capable of firing as many as sixteen consecutive shots in as little as twenty seconds. After the gun had fired its consecutive loads, it… Read more »
Thank you for sharing that. It says everything that needs saying.