ICYMI: Judge Benitez Hammers Activist Professor Donohue in Miller v Becerra

Opinion

In mid-October of 2023, Judge Benitez, in a powerful ruling, took longtime activist Professor Donohue to task in Miller v Becerra.

John J. Donohue III is a lawyer and economist who has published numerous papers. Many of those papers were statistical studies about guns and crime. He is a professor at Stanford Law School. Some of his prominent papers dispute the findings of John Lott, who found an increase in the issuance of carry permits led to a decrease in homicides.

Professor Donohue’s findings have also been disputed. His analysis focuses on state-level statistics, while John Lott’s analysis uses finer-grained county-level statistics.

Professor Donohue submitted a supplemental declaration to the court in support of Becerra and the State of California. Unlike his articles about concealed carry, there is no esoteric mathematics involving state-level synthetic controls.

Judge Benitez carefully considered Professor Donohue’s. He finds it has little to do with the California ban on “assault weapons.

From Miller v Becerra, page 69:

John J. Donohue is a professor of law. His supplemental declaration is not particularly helpful. For example, professor Donohue describes a 2018 medical study published on the Jama Network Open about 511 gunshot victims in Boston. He opines that study “applies directly to bans on assault weapons and high capacity magazines.  Yet the study noted that only one of the 511 victims studied was shot with a rifle caliber round (7.62 x 39 mm.) Why the study applies directly to bans on “assault weapons,” as professor Donohue opines, is not at all obvious. Handgun wounds were the main point of the study. Professor Donohue also opines that the dangers of weapons like the AR-15 will outpace any legitimate crime-reducing benefit the firearms provide, citing the 2017 Sutherland Springs Baptist Church shooting. He picked an ironic example. a neighbor, Stephen Willeford, stopped the mass shooter in that tragedy with four shots from his own AR-15.

Professor Donohue previously commented on the lawful-to-own Ruger Mini-14 rifle wich is similar to the banned rifles. He offered that the Mini-14’s current legality is because the firearm restrictions are to be increased “incrementally.” He concludes with abject conjecture imagining the January 6, 2021 Capitol rally would have turned out like the Kent State University shootings, but for the District of Columbia’s prohibition on “assault weapons”. Professor Donohue’s opinions are entitled to no weight.

Judge Benitez shows Professor Donohue as pushing a number of gunshot victims (shot almost entirely with handguns) as an emotional ploy.

Emotional ploys are used when you do not have a logical argument. It is also a push for interest balancing, forbidden in the Heller and Bruen Supreme Court cases. The information that shows Professor Donohue did not find the exception for the Mini-14 Rifle relevant is highly revealing because the gun banners had simply not gotten around to banning it yet. It exposes the “slippery slope” argument as valid.  It shows at least one prominent professor and lawyer conspicuously referenced by those who oppose a strong Second Amendment views gun restrictions as best done “incrementally.” It is reminiscent of the overused boiling frog analogy. The weird hypothetical about the January 6th Capitol Rally and Kent State is particularly strange. Kent State happened in 1970. There were no privately owned firearms involved. The U.S. government would have owned the only “assault weapons” involved.  Judge Benitez makes the obvious judgment.

Professor Donohue’s opinions are entitled to no weight.

With Judge Benitez, those pushing for a disarmed population have found a jurist who is knowledgeable about firearms and firearms history, who rigorously does his homework and applies the law as the Constitution and the Supreme Court require. Meanwhile, Professor Donohue is exposed as either a freedom-hating ant-gun hack or just ignorant and in no position to be providing declarations to the courts.

About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30-year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.