Who Wants to Tell California AG
Bonta that Access to ‘Weapons of War’
as a Check Against Tyranny is a Core
Tenet of the Second Amendment?

By Konstadinos Moros. Dec 5, 2022

I spent much of the last week assisting my brilliant colleagues in preparing their supplemental brief in Duncan v. Bonta. This is the magazine-capacity case that kicked off the now-famous “freedom week” in California in 2019. Our win in district court was affirmed on appeal by a 3-judge panel, but then was reversed by the Ninth Circuit sitting en banc.

Thankfully, the Supreme Court acted on our appeal by vacating the en banc decision and remanding the case for further proceedings in light of Bruen.

Back in the district court, the Attorney General Rob Bonta submitted an overlong brief making all sorts of inane arguments, which our brief responds to quite well. However, one throwaway line from the Attorney General bugged me immensely …

In neither Heller nor Bruen did the Court find that the Second Amendment’s protections were grounded in the need to bear arms for militia service…or as a “check against tyranny”. In fact, Bruen repeatedly confirms that self-defense (and not militia or military service) is the “central component” of the right protected by the Second Amendment.

Personal self-defense is certainly a critical aspect of the Second Amendment, but both the founders as well as the generations immediately after them considered one other purpose paramount: a final defense against a tyrannical government that attempts to overthrow our constitutional order.

This idea, once accepted as common knowledge, has become controversial. .....