FEDERAL JUDGE OVERTURNS CALIFORNIA BAN ON ASSAULT RIFLES

US District Judge Roger Benitez of San Diego has overturned California's longtime ban on assault weapons on Friday in a ruling that likened the AR-15 to a Swiss Army knife and earned him condemnation from families of mass shooting victims, Alexandra Meeks, Josh Campbell and Eric Levenson wrote for CNN.

Assault weapons have been banned in California since 1989, according to the ruling. The law has been updated several times since it was originally passed. According to Benitez, the assault weapons ban violates the Second Amendment's right to bear arms and deprives Californians from owning assault-style weapons commonly allowed in other states.

Benitez issued a permanent injunction Friday so the law cannot be enforced. "Like the Swiss Army Knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment," Benitez said in the ruling. "Firearms deemed as 'assault weapons' are fairly ordinary, popular, modern rifles."

The comparison of the AR-15 to a versatile pocket knife favored by campers drew sharp criticism from California officials including Gov. Gavin Newsom, who called the AR-15 a "weapon of war."

The comparison, he said in a statement, "completely undermines the credibility of this decision and is a slap in the face to the families who've lost loved ones to this weapon." Newsom added: "We're not backing down from this fight, and we'll continue pushing for common-sense gun laws that will save lives."

Fred Guttenberg, a gun safety activist whose daughter was killed in the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018, denounced the judge's comparison. "My daughter is in a cemetery because a Swiss Army Knife was not used, because it was an AR-15," he said.

"If a Swiss Army Knife were used, my daughter and most of those other kids and adults would be alive today." Guttenberg also called Benitez a "liar" and an "activist judge." "You are a liar, and your opinion is written utilizing the exact language of the gun lobby. These are not new words. These are not new phrases. They are not new expressions," he said. "You took the language from the gun lobby to write this opinion."

Also on Saturday, Richard Martinez, whose son was killed in a 2014 California mass shooting, spoke to CNN's Fredricka Whitfield and rejected the judge's conclusion that assault weapons like the AR-15 are fairly ordinary, popular, modern rifles. "It's outrageous," Martinez told CNN.

"It is wrong. Assault weapons were designed by the military to kill people, to kill a lot of people, to kill a lot of people quickly. These types of AR-15-style weapons are modeled after the military versions, and they function pretty much the same way as the weapons used by the military."

Judy Weldon, a teacher who survived a 1989 shooting at an elementary school in Stockton, California, said "it is a devastating blow to survivors and all the families. His whole ruling is terribly flawed." Weldon called the judge's decision "grossly irresponsible," adding there was no reason for assault weapons "to be in the hands of ordinary citizens."

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