#Roger benitez trial
#Roger benitez free

It was written by: Eliga Gould, University of New Hampshire. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. If the rifle really is Benitez’s “ideal” weapon for a citizen militia, then perhaps the state is right. The AR-15 may no longer be unusual, but California’s decision to appeal Benitez’s ruling shows that the state still thinks it is dangerous.

#Roger benitez free

For that reason, the Supreme Court held that state and federal authorities can bar firearms from schools and public buildings, while the people remain free to prohibit what Scalia called “ dangerous and unusual weapons.” The right to own a gun is “ not unlimited,” as Justice Scalia wrote in 2008. The nation’s first president made clear that in a democratic republic, the way to make your voice heard is through the ballot box, not the muzzle of a gun. By the time the Western Army reached the Ohio River, most of the rebels had gone home. President George Washington responded in 1794 by marching west at the head of 12,950 federalized state militiamen. During the so-called Whiskey Rebellion from 1791 to 1794, which occurred after the Constitution and Second Amendment had been ratified, armed insurgents near Pittsburgh forcibly resisted a new federal tax on distilled spirits, mustering in military-style formations, tarring and feathering federal excise officers, and threatening secession. Naturally, not all early Americans accepted such distinctions. In California, as Benitez notes in his opinion, the militia also includes the State Guard, a force trained and equipped by the government. Today, the militia in all 50 states is the National Guard. As the founders knew, a “well-regulated militia” was one authorized, trained and – with growing frequency during the American Revolution – armed and provisioned by state governments.Īfter the American Revolution, the purpose of these state militias was clearly laid out in Article I, Section 8, Clause 15 of the Constitution: so Congress could use them to “ execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions.” The biggest problem with Benitez’s ruling is that the Second Amendment sanctions a “well-regulated militia,” not an informal assembly of armed citizens.

#Roger benitez trial

Does a citizen militia include the protesters who occupied the Michigan State Capitol during the spring of 2020, posing with assault weapons slung over their shoulders? What about the activists who in the summer of 2020 briefly created Seattle’s Capitol Hill autonomous zone, where guards armed with AR-15s stood watch at the entrance and patrolled the streets? Kyle Rittenhouse, on trial for killing two people with a Smith & Wesson rifle in Kenosha, Wisconsin, allegedly viewed himself as part of a militia and claimed to be helping the police.

Although Benitez surely knows that the United States has a long history of vigilantism and mob violence, he doesn’t say which informal groups of armed citizens in this country might qualify and which would not. The examples he offers include the armed partisans led by Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, and the Taliban and Iraqi insurgents. While distinguishing a citizen militia from a “ state-organized militia,” the judge is vague about what, exactly, a citizen militia is. California’s defense was that assault weapons are more dangerous than other firearms and therefore subject to additional restrictions.īenitez accepts this individual right, including to own assault weapons, but he adds what he calls “citizen militias” to the mix, which he defines as an “informal assembly of able-bodied, ordinary citizens acting in concert for the security of our nation.” The AR-15, he says, is an “ ideal arm” for such purposes. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit claimed that California’s assault weapons ban unconstitutionally restricted citizens’ Second Amendment rights by preventing them from using assault weapons for home defense and other legal purposes.

But the case raises troubling questions about the meaning and proper role of “militias” under the Second Amendment. Most coverage has focused on Benitez’s provocative analogy between an AR-15 and a Swiss army knife. District Court Judge Roger Benitez, does not take effect immediately, because California has 30 days to appeal the rejection of its assault weapons ban. When a federal judge in California struck down the state’s 32-year-old ban on assault weapons in early June 2021, he added a volatile new issue to the gun-rights debate. The Second Amendment declares the importance of state-government authorized militias, like these National Guard troops guarding the California State Capitol building.