Assault rifles are nothing more than ordinary weapons like the Swiss army knife: "A defense weapon useful for protecting one's home and homeland".
So says the shock sentence that in California after 35 years canceled the ban on the sale of the infamous AR-15 or AK-47, the Kalashnikov-style rifles protagonists of most of the massacres that continue to bloodied America.
All this at a time when the Biden administration is engaged in yet another effort to try to stop the mass shootings, defined by the White House as a real epidemic and a national shame.
The appeal filed in 2019 by a group made up of gun owners, lobbyists and owners of armories was the federal district judge Roger Benitez, appointed in 2003 by George W. Bush and already made headlines for having blocked in 2003 the Californian law banning the sale of maxi magazines, those capable of holding more than ten bullets.
For the pro-gun magistrate, the 1989 ban banning assault rifles "is unconstitutional because the government of a state is not free to impose its political choices on American citizens when these concern constitutional rights": in in this case the second amendment which establishes the right to defense and possession of firearms. The judge, however, went further, motivating the sentence in a way that is nothing short of questionable: "Here we are not talking about bazookas, cannons or machine guns, but about ordinary modern and popular rifles". Hence the daring parallel with the Swiss army knife, "the perfect combination of a weapon for home defense and a weapon for defense of the homeland". However, the sentence is suspended for 30 days,the time it takes to allow the state of California to appeal.
