Episode 232 - California Assault Weapons Ban Ruled Unconstitutional (w/ Attorney John Dillon)

[00:00:00] If you're a California conservative, a libertarian, a moderate Democrat, believe in common sense,

[00:00:11] or just the same person.

[00:00:13] This is the political podcast for you.

[00:00:15] It's the California Underground Podcast.

[00:00:27] What's going on, everybody?

[00:00:28] Thanks for tuning into another episode of the California Underground Podcast.

[00:00:31] I am back from my travels.

[00:00:33] It's been two weeks.

[00:00:34] Thank you to Camille last week for hosting the episode with Amy Reikart.

[00:00:38] It was a great episode.

[00:00:39] Sean Frederickson as well.

[00:00:41] Thank you for hopping on while I was away.

[00:00:44] My travel's caught up with me and I'm a little sick.

[00:00:46] The jet lag between Europe and California got to me so that's not the point of this episode

[00:00:51] though.

[00:00:52] We've got much more important things to talk about tonight.

[00:00:54] That's why we have John Dillon on the show, attorney, Dylan Law GP behind the ruling that

[00:01:00] just came out huge earth shattering second amendment news.

[00:01:04] The assault weapons ban in California has been deemed unconstitutional for all those watching

[00:01:10] or listening right now saying yes, we already knew that well, it's because we have a new

[00:01:16] Supreme Court ruling and John is going to get into all that.

[00:01:19] So John, welcome to the show.

[00:01:21] How are you doing tonight?

[00:01:23] Yeah, thanks for having me.

[00:01:24] I'm doing well.

[00:01:25] Awesome.

[00:01:26] So why don't you do a little bit to introduce yourself, tell people who you are and how

[00:01:32] you got involved in like this area of law?

[00:01:34] What you've been doing in it so far.

[00:01:38] So all right.

[00:01:39] Well, my name's John Dillon.

[00:01:40] I'm the principal partner of the Dylan Law Group in Crosby, California.

[00:01:45] Born raised in Southern California.

[00:01:47] This in Diego went to law school, loyal law school.

[00:01:52] Funnily enough, I kind of owe it to California for my career.

[00:01:58] In law school, I had a big period of time in between the classes where I didn't want

[00:02:03] to go and research or read in the library.

[00:02:06] And I didn't want to drive back through LA traffic to get home.

[00:02:09] So I actually started shooting at the LA DUN club because it was down the street from

[00:02:13] my law school.

[00:02:15] So after a little while, doing that, got into shooting.

[00:02:18] But my first gun, it was a little time after that.

[00:02:21] I started tinkering with the gun.

[00:02:23] Everyone buys a clock and you can't actually leave it the way it is.

[00:02:27] So I switched the barrel out, tried to get a match grade barrel or something like that.

[00:02:32] And that was on an online forum back then.

[00:02:36] And someone tells me that I committed a felony in California because I changed the barrel

[00:02:41] on my pistol.

[00:02:43] And the 21 year old me panics, I freak out.

[00:02:48] I race into the law school library, start trying to research the penal code, figuring

[00:02:53] out what my legal defense is going to be because I figured the ATF and the DOJ were going

[00:02:57] to climb through the window, kick back down my door and shoot my dog.

[00:03:02] So I'm reading this law, try and figure out like, okay, what do I do?

[00:03:09] Learn that in fact, I didn't actually commit a felony by changing the barrel on my

[00:03:13] pistol.

[00:03:14] But while reading these laws, I started to be like, well that's kind of a stupid law.

[00:03:18] Why are they doing that?

[00:03:20] Why do they require you to wait 10 days?

[00:03:22] What the hell is a cooling off period?

[00:03:26] Just all sorts of stuff.

[00:03:27] What's a handgun roster?

[00:03:28] Why is the blue coat Python okay, but the silver ones illegal and not safe?

[00:03:36] So that kind of just turned into a weird obsession while I was in law school because when you're

[00:03:41] in law school, I don't know if you have the same experience.

[00:03:43] But when I was in there, when they came across the Second Amendment, they were like a well-regulated

[00:03:49] militia basically that laws you keep in bare arms as long as your part of a militia and

[00:03:55] that's about all we need to say.

[00:03:56] And then they just moved on.

[00:03:57] I think we spent more time on the Third Amendment than we did on the Second Amendment,

[00:04:03] in every other amendment.

[00:04:06] So that obsession just rolled into after I got my license to practice law.

[00:04:11] I started working down in San Diego.

[00:04:14] And somehow convinced the partners of my old firm that, hey, California is a insane place

[00:04:22] when it comes to gun laws.

[00:04:24] And there's not a lot of attorneys that are really practicing strictly in firearms laws.

[00:04:29] So I think there's a little market here and I think I can do something.

[00:04:33] And shortly after I convinced them to do that, I just started rolling in it and trying

[00:04:39] to find clients figured out, just learned a law myself.

[00:04:42] And I met up with Michael Swartz with San Diego County gun owners right after the time

[00:04:49] where he just kind of created that and hooked up with him, you know, like-minded individuals

[00:04:55] and went on from there and then around actually the start of COVID, I left my old firm and

[00:05:02] I started my own firm that we, you know, our main focus is a firearms regulation.

[00:05:09] That's kind of how I got here.

[00:05:12] So obviously when you went in and researched in the law library and the more you dug,

[00:05:19] you started to realize how utterly stupid all these gun laws are and how none of them

[00:05:23] make sense correctly.

[00:05:25] Yeah, it was crazy, you know.

[00:05:28] As someone who I admit, when I was my first year in law school, I didn't know anything

[00:05:32] about constitution and then knowing anything about the Second Amendment.

[00:05:36] You know, I had vague interest in guns before I started buying guns and started shooting.

[00:05:41] But you know, I was woefully ignorant and I would say I was woefully ignorant like a lot

[00:05:48] of the population in California when it comes to their fundamental rights, unfortunately.

[00:05:56] So just started reading this stuff and not really having an opinion or a position whether

[00:06:02] it be left or right or, you know, pro-gun, anti-gun.

[00:06:06] I quite literally started reading the penal code thinking that I'd come up with my own legal

[00:06:10] defense.

[00:06:12] And so I think reading through everything I really had an objective view of these laws

[00:06:17] when I read them for the first time and just over and over again, you know, you read

[00:06:22] these things and they don't make any common sense.

[00:06:25] There's no rational basis for it and it just perplexed me going through it all.

[00:06:32] And then I started reading about stories of people actually getting in trouble and, you

[00:06:36] know, getting arrested and having convictions based off of these weird technicalities when

[00:06:41] it comes to gun laws.

[00:06:42] And I thought that was just an absurd process.

[00:06:46] And as my wife said, I just delved in deep into the obsession in law school and it's

[00:06:53] the thing that keeps me going.

[00:06:56] Being a lawyer is not always fun.

[00:06:57] It's not like the TV shows but when you get to do stuff like Second Amendment, it's always

[00:07:03] a good time.

[00:07:04] Yeah.

[00:07:05] And I can agree with you there.

[00:07:06] It's not always glamorous like suits or anything like that.

[00:07:10] A lot of it's a lot of this work.

[00:07:11] You have a lot of alcoholic drinks in the middle of the afternoon on a work day.

[00:07:15] I see that a lot but I've never experienced that.

[00:07:20] Yeah, I've never had the martini lunch like people always say or the liquid lunch.

[00:07:25] Yeah.

[00:07:26] But speaking of ridiculous gun laws and how silly and they don't make any sense, let's

[00:07:31] pivot now to obviously this huge ruling Miller versus Bonta, which you were a part of.

[00:07:38] This is a law that I think most Second Amendment people in California looked at this

[00:07:42] law and said, this makes absolutely no sense.

[00:07:46] You can tell it was written by people who don't understand guns and I will admit I was reading

[00:07:51] the decision today.

[00:07:52] I got through about 50% of it because there's just so much there that beneath has put in

[00:07:58] the decision.

[00:08:00] But let's start at the beginning.

[00:08:04] How you got involved in this specific case and how you attacked it against the state

[00:08:09] and sort of what was your strategy?

[00:08:12] Yeah, so I worked with the Firearms Policy Coalition, the Second Amendment Foundation.

[00:08:21] I mentioned the San Diego County Gun Owners Association.

[00:08:27] We all got together and it was determined that we got a challenge as the so weapons ban.

[00:08:33] At the time, the rub case was recently filed.

[00:08:39] That was the challenge to the assault rifle provisions in the Central District of California.

[00:08:47] The thought was we got a challenge.

[00:08:49] The whole thing, this is ridiculous.

[00:08:52] We go through iteration and iteration of what a missile weapon is.

[00:08:58] If you go back to the beginning, the 1989 Assault Weapons Act in California, they ban

[00:09:04] guns based off of their making model.

[00:09:06] The name to guns, the name to assault weapons.

[00:09:10] After so many years of that, the state was like, well, we're not stopping people from buying

[00:09:16] these guns because they're buying guns with different names.

[00:09:20] So how else can we ban a large group of guns without having to name them individually

[00:09:27] by making model?

[00:09:28] So they determined that, okay, we'll just ban them based off of various features of the

[00:09:33] characteristics.

[00:09:34] That was back in 2000.

[00:09:36] That's when you get the first iteration of a semi-automatic center fire rifle with pistol

[00:09:40] grip, folding claps will stock, vertical forward grip, flash hider, all that kind of stuff.

[00:09:47] We filed in 2019 challenging the full gambit of the assault weapons to collect all the definitions,

[00:09:54] including rifle spistled shotguns.

[00:09:57] And the strategy was this, we had DCV Heller, came out in 2008 and ever since I first read

[00:10:05] that case, it seemed pretty clear on how the analysis should go.

[00:10:10] We unfortunately had a good decade or more of the time where the Ninth Circuit and other

[00:10:17] courts of appeals, they made up this weird concocted analysis of how they determine whether

[00:10:24] a gun control law actually violates the Second Amendment.

[00:10:28] And funnily enough, it always seemed to end up to where the state was somehow able

[00:10:33] to justify any one of these bans.

[00:10:37] So we knew we were going up against that scheme and we knew that we're going to have an uphill

[00:10:44] battle from the very beginning.

[00:10:46] We thought the time was right, it needed to be challenged and the fact was we've always

[00:10:52] had Supreme Court precedent on our side when it comes to DCV Heller.

[00:10:55] It was just a matter of getting a court to hear and understand and truly apply what the

[00:11:02] precedent was when it comes to can-you-band guns that are in common use.

[00:11:07] So that was kind of the beginning stages of it.

[00:11:11] Again, we fell in 2019 and went from there.

[00:11:13] And the brewing decision which came out last year now that obviously was a game changer

[00:11:21] completely.

[00:11:22] It changed the landscape in every way when it came to Second Amendment cases.

[00:11:30] I think a lot of time when it came out, the media and the press and everyone

[00:11:35] was talking about the concealed carry conclusion and the fact that New York can no longer require

[00:11:41] good cost for concealed carry.

[00:11:43] And then how that's going to be, you know, having a fact across the country.

[00:11:47] But I'm sure you noticed this as well.

[00:11:50] But anyone who has been following Second Amendment cases, following the dissenting opinions

[00:11:56] when Ritav Sertarari gets rejected from Justice Thomas, they saw the writing on the wall

[00:12:02] that the tests that the lower courts were using was wrong.

[00:12:06] When we got the brewing decision, we got a complete rejection of this made-up test.

[00:12:12] And it really pulled things back to and now forcing the lower courts to apply a standard

[00:12:20] that's much harder to get around than what they're previously working with.

[00:12:25] So this case had gone up and the Supreme Court had remanded it

[00:12:31] back down because of the brewing decision.

[00:12:35] So yeah, what happened is we filed for a preliminary injunction in the district court.

[00:12:41] We had an evidentiary hearing on that additional briefing was submitted and we actually then

[00:12:48] had hearing a trial where we had witnesses testified cross-examined experts all that submitted

[00:12:56] all our evidence and then the court consolidated that and did made it a hearing on the merits.

[00:13:02] And so we had a full trial on the merits for determining whether the assault weapon control act

[00:13:09] was constitutional. The district court came back and said that, you know, no, this is not

[00:13:15] constitutional and it was going to be enjoying. Now that was all pre-brewed. So this is before the

[00:13:20] brewing test, we were actually successful and we were the first district court in the country

[00:13:26] to come back with a decision that an assault weapons ban was on constitutional. So that was a big win,

[00:13:32] especially considering in fact that the brewing hadn't even come out yet.

[00:13:35] Shortly after we got that decision, just like we're seeing today, the state appealed and then they

[00:13:42] also went for an emergency motion to stay the decision pending appeal. And so what that basically

[00:13:48] means when they're asking to stay opinion is the district court came out and said this law is

[00:13:54] on constitutional in 10 days, this decision goes into effect and the assault weapons ban will no

[00:14:01] longer be enforceable by the DOJ and police. So the state came in and asked for an emergency motion

[00:14:08] to stay and that means you got to put a pause on that. Put a pause on the decision

[00:14:13] until we go through the court of appeals and the court of appeals looks at the case.

[00:14:19] That stay was granted by the court of appeals and then shortly after that happened though,

[00:14:26] the brewing decision came. And so before any briefing on the merits on appeal happened,

[00:14:33] no one did an opening brief, no opposition, no reply. We never actually made any arguments

[00:14:37] of any kind in front of the court of appeals. The case was vacated and remanded back down to the

[00:14:43] district court to be consistent with throwing decision. And that happened to, I want to say almost

[00:14:50] every single second of the case, that was going through the courts a lot of courts of appeals

[00:14:57] remanded their cases back down the district court because like I said earlier before brewing

[00:15:03] they were applying this test. It's a two-part test with a sliding scales kind of how the

[00:15:11] district court in our case categorized it, but basically there was a balancing of interests

[00:15:16] where the court or the state would basically say, well these are the reasons why we have the ban,

[00:15:20] we think it's for public safety, we think it'll save everybody, not really offering any real

[00:15:25] concrete evidence that it would do that. But under the old standard courts would be like, well,

[00:15:31] the reasoning that the state has to stop mass shootings and to protect public safety, those

[00:15:38] are good reasons. And so we uphold law. And that was essentially what the test was. And so when it

[00:15:46] came back down the courts were like, look you got to now apply the brewing standard because

[00:15:50] decision and brewing outright rejected this balancing test said you cannot balance the interest,

[00:15:55] you cannot do any type of means and scrutiny analysis. And so we went back in for the district

[00:16:01] court, the funny thing was is that the way we argued the case and in fact the way the case

[00:16:09] decision first came out is the district court actually applied the brewing test before the brewing

[00:16:15] test was labeled that they called it the Heller test and it was a factual matter of like are

[00:16:24] these firearms in common use, if they're common use then they can't be banned. And that's the

[00:16:29] end of story. And so the court actually came up with that decision on its own before brewing but

[00:16:33] then it also applied this old nine-circuit or quarter of appeals standard where they balance

[00:16:41] the interest and still came out in our favor. So after it came back down court requested some

[00:16:47] additional briefing to specifically address what brewing said we submitted multiple briefs on that

[00:16:54] summarizing and analyzing the case and its applicability to our case at hand. Went back and forth

[00:17:04] let's see I think there was two brief, a supplemental brief and then responses to each of those

[00:17:09] briefs that were all provided to the court all addressing Droom. And then in December of last year

[00:17:17] the court actually called for a hearing a conference where he brought in all parties and in fact

[00:17:25] they brought in the parties for the Felt's case, the Duncan case this was that was a recent magazine

[00:17:33] ban case, the Rodi case which is a challenge to California's ammunition regulation. So they were

[00:17:39] all in front of the same court so he called everyone in and at that hearing he told the state look

[00:17:48] I'm going to give you a few months I want you to compile any and all laws historical laws

[00:17:54] that you have that you can find that would justify this ban. And so you know in a couple of months

[00:18:01] time give me a list I want the date of the law what the law was, what it did if it was ever

[00:18:07] challenged in court if it was ever held on constitutional, if it was ever repealed I just want

[00:18:14] a giant list of all the laws that you think support this ban. And then about January, February

[00:18:22] this year they submitted a big old pile of laws I think it was around 316 laws over that covered

[00:18:32] over 500 year period of time and you know the state was like this is our you know justification

[00:18:38] for the assault weapons ban. The court actually issued a minute order after that stating now that I

[00:18:46] have the survey I want the state to identify the most relevant analogous regulation for the

[00:18:54] assault ban that would justify it. So give me your best law that you say justifies the assault

[00:18:59] weapons ban and let me know what that is. And the state came back and stated that I think it was a

[00:19:07] 1771 New Jersey law regulating trap guns or booby traps. And that was the reason that the state can

[00:19:16] now ban the possession use transfer ownership sale of assault weapons. And it you know

[00:19:27] not shocking to me and you know all of us working on the case because you know we looked at these

[00:19:33] laws and we saw them and read Bruin but you know you think with the entire power of the state using

[00:19:40] all our tax money and hiring all these experts they'd be able to come up with more than just a

[00:19:44] single law that didn't even regulate trap guns it just regulate setting them up and killing certain

[00:19:52] game animals with them. So that was the big you know justification for their for the law and

[00:20:00] because of that we got the decision we did a couple days ago. Before I ask my next question what

[00:20:07] was there rationale that this trap gun or trap had anything to do with the assault weapons ban

[00:20:15] and what was there rationale for that? Yeah so the rationale was that this 1771 trap gun regulation

[00:20:23] was a sufficiently analogous regulation on the regulation of dangerous and unusual weapons

[00:20:32] and because of that they can now regulate any weapon that they deemed dangerous and unusual today.

[00:20:39] So we say that's assault weapons and it's funny the court actually addresses specifically addresses this

[00:20:46] issue and goes and looks up the entirety of the law that they reference and it actually kind of

[00:20:52] calls it out saying this isn't even a regulation on the ownership and possession of trap guns.

[00:20:58] Under this law you can buy cell transfer own possess and even use trap guns you just can't

[00:21:04] set these trap guns in order to hunt certain game animals and so to say that that law is the

[00:21:14] equivalent of the assault weapons ban which makes it a felony to own a gun that has a pistol grip

[00:21:23] or a flash hider or an adjustable stock. It's just an absurd leap in logic and anyone who has any

[00:21:32] objective standard whatsoever can't look at those things and be the hierarch that it doesn't work you know.

[00:21:40] Now before we kind of dive more into this specific ruling I think it's important for listeners

[00:21:46] to understand how impactful brewing was so when brewing came out I had read the decision said

[00:21:54] this is great for carrying conceal but this is an earthquake for second amendment jurisprudence

[00:22:00] across the country because they changed the whole test so can you go into a little bit for

[00:22:05] people to understand why is brewing so big and so monumental and why is it changing everything now.

[00:22:12] Yeah so it's really true the change in the standard of how courts are going to look at second amendment

[00:22:22] cases you know use that as an earthquake yeah it was Mount Fisu this you know Pompeii eruption

[00:22:28] in my opinion that the fact that the court explicitly called out this old two-park test that was

[00:22:39] being you know used by a majority of the courts across the country and the Lord of Courts Cross

[00:22:45] Country were applying this two-park test to second amendment cases and it was to say it was

[00:22:53] an uphill battle you know for gun rights was is a huge understatement under that test like I said

[00:23:00] earlier literally any justification that the state could come up with was sufficient to justify

[00:23:08] any type of gun regulation. I'll give you an example there's a case Sylvester V Harris back in

[00:23:14] 2016 where they were challenging the the 10-day waiting period in California and the unique thing

[00:23:21] about this case is you had plaintiffs that were concealed carry holders and or gun owners so every one

[00:23:26] of the plaintiffs challenging the law was already already owned a gun or literally had a gun on their

[00:23:32] hip while they were going into a store to buy another gun and the argument that they made was like look

[00:23:37] we go in and we instantly pass the background check. We have a gun on our hip you know we're law

[00:23:44] abiding citizens there should be no need for a 10-day wait if we've already passed the background check

[00:23:51] especially since you know we have a gun and cooling off what are we going to cool off from if

[00:23:58] we wanted to commit a crime I'd use the gun that's on my hip or I'd use the you know 10 guns I have at

[00:24:03] home so they made these arguments to the court and the states response to this while was along the

[00:24:11] lines of well you know if they wanted to commit a crime with the new gun the cooling off period would

[00:24:19] help and yeah I don't think I need to really go with a lot of detail on that but so they said

[00:24:28] you know they still need the cooling off period and in that case actually didn't present any

[00:24:33] evidence ever that the cooling off period has ever stopped a crime made someone change their mind

[00:24:40] anything like that so that's the situation you're in the court heard all this and said yep that's

[00:24:46] sufficient justification that's a good you know public safety law and this was under the old standard

[00:24:52] so it was arguments like that that were being upheld under this old standard is just anything the

[00:24:58] state said was just filed so now Bruin comes along and says this entire test that they're

[00:25:05] employing where you're balancing interests you know addressing court cases by applying levels of

[00:25:14] scrutiny whether there be rational basis intermediate or strict scrutiny that entire scheme is

[00:25:20] outright rejected you cannot use this test and instead you have to make your the test is based off

[00:25:28] text and history and it's very simple it says this if the plain text of the second amendment

[00:25:34] covers the conduct and question then it's presumptively protected by the second amendment

[00:25:41] then the it shifts the burden shifts to the government that they have to then go and identify

[00:25:48] historical analogous regulations from the founding era that would justify the current ban so

[00:25:56] completely different situation than what it was it used to be the burden was on us

[00:26:01] you know we had to try to decipher all this mumbo jumbo junk science expert testimony that the

[00:26:11] states would use to justify these bans and you know courts would always rule in their favor because

[00:26:17] basically any justification was enough that's now gone now you look at the text of second

[00:26:23] amendment it's very simple does that cover the conduct and question yes okay now the burdens on

[00:26:28] the government we don't do anything and the government has to prove that their laws justified by

[00:26:35] going back and finding relevant and analogous laws what I mean by that is laws that are you know

[00:26:41] relevant relevantly similar that would then say like okay for example if they prohibited the

[00:26:48] ownership and possession of firearms of certain guns during the founding era you know muskids or

[00:26:54] you know even cannons or gattling guns well then that would show that oh at least in the founding

[00:27:00] there was some laws where the government was permitted to regulate the ownership and possession

[00:27:06] of firearms well thing is there is no there's no law of any kind that prohibited the possession

[00:27:14] of firearms any firearm during the founding era and I don't think I believe in the decision

[00:27:22] the court states that according to one expert the first outright ban on the possession of a

[00:27:28] firearm was in 1911 so that's a far cry from founding era and it does not show a historical

[00:27:36] tradition of firearms regulation and because of that the laws on constitution so this new test

[00:27:45] where it just throws away all the garbage science garbage opinions that used to be employed is

[00:27:54] massive in the you know the fight for second-member rights it truly has changed the game I believe

[00:28:02] it's going to result in an era where you know bands on possession of firearms are just not

[00:28:08] going to be able to be done and I think that's a wonderfully and how did this I mean I read the

[00:28:15] decision and how what just give us a synopsis of how panitas arrived at his decision in this Miller case

[00:28:23] using brewing yeah I mean the decisions awesome it's amazingly well written almost every instance

[00:28:33] every statement is supported by factual evidence in the record and there's no big leaps in logic

[00:28:41] or conclusions or anything like that but you know it's very simple just like kind of what I laid out

[00:28:47] the decision starts off with you know let's go with the plain text of second-member the right to keep

[00:28:51] bare arms you know what is an arm it's any weapon for offense or defense and so it's very clear

[00:29:00] these guns are arms they're firearms they easily fall within the plain text of the second-member

[00:29:06] so therefore they're going to be protected by the second-member so now we shift the you know

[00:29:12] the burden goes to the state and they now have the burden to justify this band so now we got to look

[00:29:19] at the historical context to you know to justify the law but the thing is with DCV Heller it already

[00:29:26] did the historical analysis when it came to firearms bands because when you go back to the Heller case

[00:29:31] you see that you know uh watch DC was trying to ban the possession of handguns DCV Heller the

[00:29:40] court's springboard back then they went back and they already did the historical approach and said

[00:29:45] well based off of our historical review the only firearms or the only arms that can be banned are

[00:29:52] those that are both dangerous and unusual and if it's not dangerous and unusual it can't be banned

[00:30:01] and at that time they were talking about handguns and handguns you know everyone has said

[00:30:05] there they put into essential self-fed weapon the public is overwhelmingly chosen handguns

[00:30:11] for any lawful purpose whether be self-fence excuse me recreation shooting hunting all that

[00:30:19] um so because of that they're in common use can't ban them uh we had uh pure curium opinion written

[00:30:28] in the katano case that later came out and that reiterated this you know dangerous and unusual

[00:30:35] test and said that uh it's both it has to be both dangerous and unusual in order to be prohibited

[00:30:43] because you know if it was dangerous or unusual or you know if you could just ban any arm that

[00:30:48] was dangerous well then the state could jump in and just ban everything whether it's a Swiss army

[00:30:52] knife or you know uh have 16 everything's dangerous if an arm is dangerous that you know they'd

[00:30:59] ban it well that can't be the case and so uh the katano court literally said this is a conjunctive

[00:31:05] test it's both dangerous and unusual uh and in addressing that test they said well an arm that

[00:31:11] is in common use cannot be you know dangerous and unusual because it's in common use so that's the

[00:31:19] test and uh you know so that historical analysis already done uh the court applied that test uh

[00:31:26] you know using broinsiding to those cases and said that there's quite literally no justification

[00:31:33] for the assault weapons ban um and although I think he didn't need to uh the decision also goes into

[00:31:41] a lot of the various arguments that the state made that still go um it would still fall under

[00:31:49] the interest balancing test that was outright rejected by broin um but he still kind of addresses

[00:31:57] those issues as uh just in case you were wondering at least that's how I read it um and really picks

[00:32:04] apart everything uh you know the main arguments that the state made and shows that there really

[00:32:10] is no justification yeah one of the things that uh bonita's really paints a picture of when he breaks

[00:32:17] down the numbers in the decision he talks about how many AR 15s are in the country and how many

[00:32:23] crimes are committed with AR 15s and it's something like 0.000000 I don't know how many zeros but

[00:32:31] like a bunch of zeros nine four three seven so it's five zeros and it's 0.00080087 percent

[00:32:40] uh and that's if you assume that every single homicide that's committed with a rifle is an

[00:32:46] assault weapon so I think the other way he put it was 99.99998932% of AR 15s are used for lawful

[00:33:00] purposes in this country and I think I was in direct response to an argument that the state

[00:33:06] continued to make throughout litigation that oh you know sole weapons are disproportionately

[00:33:13] used in crimes and all this stuff and it's like well no they're not uh quite literally take

[00:33:19] the worst crime there is homicide you take every single long gun that's ever you know been used

[00:33:27] in a crime at least since in 2021 that's 274 I think or 474 I forget the the number but that's

[00:33:34] in the entire country with 330 million people you had under 500 the homicides are committed with

[00:33:41] any type of rifle so to say that assault weapons are this major uh you know catastrophic weapon

[00:33:51] of mass destruction thing it's just factually incorrect and there's no basis to make any type of claim

[00:33:58] and it really just shows you know these arguments are fear mongering they're for the headlines

[00:34:03] they're for news they're for people to read uh out of glance and just assume I go yeah well I guess

[00:34:09] we have a huge problem with assault weapons when people are dying um but the the the fact is

[00:34:15] it just is not supported by any uh reality or any evidence one of my favorite lines which

[00:34:22] it comes from the conclusion is that California's answer to the criminal misuse of a few

[00:34:27] is to disarm its many good residents that knee-jerk reaction is constitutionally untannable

[00:34:33] just as it was 250 years ago the Second Amendment stands as a shield from government imposition

[00:34:39] of that policy and I think that's so true that it just like you're saying they take fear mongering

[00:34:45] where they take one tiny tiny little case where one bad guy does something so the knee-jerk reaction

[00:34:51] of a lot of those on the left is well let's just take all the guns away because obviously no one

[00:34:56] can be trusted with guns even though it's just one person out of how many millions of people own

[00:35:01] guns and nothing happens when you have lawfully lawful good citizens who own firearms

[00:35:09] yeah no I completely agree and you know uh unfortunately uh you know in the work that I've done

[00:35:17] I've come to the conclusion that um you know and I'm sure there's some people that will agree with

[00:35:23] me on this uh these laws are not meant for our safety they're not meant to to make our world a

[00:35:28] better place uh they just they're not written that way they're not implemented that way

[00:35:34] they don't do anything to actually help good law-biting people um you know and it's funny

[00:35:40] in the decision it actually references this fact um if I remember correctly let's see um

[00:35:49] um who was it I think it was a reference to one of the experts in the case uh let's

[00:36:00] I think I have it here so again it's just amazing

[00:36:04] like a lot of x you're bored oh sorry

[00:36:09] that's fine it just sounds like like like fake sound effects we like added in

[00:36:13] here's some draw it's uh it's a loud keyboard I'll say that yeah so it was uh let's see

[00:36:24] yeah so John Donneux I think made the claim that these laws they're meant to be implemented at an

[00:36:31] incremental basis and I think that kind of tips the hand of the state is this is in about like

[00:36:39] hey we'll make this law and this is what we believe will help people save people it's no no we want

[00:36:48] this this is our goal no guns no private ownership of guns we know we can't do that uh you know

[00:36:55] that'll send up some red flags and even a lot of people that are more uh liberal or leftist

[00:37:00] or anti-gun will even say well you can't just outright ban all ownership of guns you know we do live

[00:37:06] in the United States we do have a second amendment so instead of doing that they implement a law

[00:37:12] and then they change that law and they implement it make it a little more restrictive and they go

[00:37:16] forward and you know incrementally make it bigger and broader and we've literally seen that

[00:37:23] with the implementation of the assault weapon control act in California in 1989 you had a limited list

[00:37:29] of firearms ever considered assault weapons 2000 now now now we changed that it's not just those

[00:37:35] of weapons that are assault weapons it's any weapon that has these features and then after a few

[00:37:40] years it's not any weapon that has these features it's also weapons that have these features as well

[00:37:49] and then we get to 2018 I think uh in 2020 even uh they changed the law again while we're in litigation

[00:37:58] defining an assault firearm because there's a couple fought uh there's a development of a couple guns

[00:38:05] that didn't have rifling but they were children fired uh guns and so they didn't qualify as a rifle

[00:38:14] didn't qualify as a shotgun the ink ball fives a pistol under California law so they're just a firearm

[00:38:21] and so they changed the law again be like okay those are assault weapons too uh and so you can see how

[00:38:27] every iteration of this ban they expand the definition of what constitutes assault weapon

[00:38:32] and every single time they just try to lump in more and more uh into that definition so

[00:38:38] it's telling in in and of itself it just shows you that okay they're not gonna stop this you think

[00:38:44] that you know they're gonna stop defining one assault weapon is in 2021 no but in a couple more years

[00:38:50] they'll redefine it and do it again um you know we've seen that with uh you know we have the challenge

[00:38:57] to the roster requirements uh and actually a successful challenge of the roster requirements

[00:39:02] in the micro stamping well you already have even though the micro stamping was held to be

[00:39:07] unconstitutional and they weren't gonna enforce that you already have a new bill I don't

[00:39:12] I don't I got to I'll be admit I don't know if it was even pass or still being proposed

[00:39:17] that addresses micro stamping in the future and implementing that later on it's like

[00:39:22] think they pass this is then they pass yeah so uh see I'll admit

[00:39:27] although you've been someone working in this field they pass these laws so often it's hard

[00:39:31] for me to even keep track sometimes uh it's crazy I have a list of like recent ones that

[00:39:39] knew some signs so I'll look and I'll I'll let you guys know when I have answer

[00:39:44] yeah and if you know speaking of our uh you know our governor you know the fact that he's

[00:39:48] repeatedly said that he will sign any gun control measure that comes across his desk I mean

[00:39:55] if you think about the implications of a statement like that that's an absurd thing to say

[00:40:01] you're saying you're gonna sign it things in the legislation into law that you don't even know what

[00:40:05] it says and to make a commitment like that just shows that uh you know he has no respect for

[00:40:13] your rights my rights the constitution or even you know do process in how this country is supposed to work

[00:40:21] it's it's disheartening uh and it's frustrating to put that in good uh appropriate language

[00:40:30] yeah and they're always like you said they're always encroaching like the the recent

[00:40:36] I don't know when they passed but it was it was if you add a handgun to the roster

[00:40:41] you have to take like two off so it was like slowly but surely like there won't be any handguns

[00:40:47] left because they'll add one take two off and it's so it's it's these little things that if you're not

[00:40:52] paying attention slowly but surely will I'll just be running around with like you know small 22

[00:40:59] like pea shooters and that's the only thing that we can use to defend ourselves nothing wrong

[00:41:03] with people who prefer 22s but you know that's that's where it's going um one of our good friends

[00:41:10] as well though from trigger great triggerology in the chat says

[00:41:14] john i just found out my city's police department in pomona is using may issue language and their ccw

[00:41:20] application and subjective good moral character and discretionary psych evaluations

[00:41:27] now is that constitutional under brewing or not

[00:41:31] i would say no not at all and in fact i just saw something i believe it was gun owners of

[00:41:40] america stating something on lines of the good moral character requirement in new york's

[00:41:47] concealed carry requirements was just struck down i don't know it was literally headline i

[00:41:53] glanced at our front jumped on here but uh yeah there's no way that those subjective tests can

[00:42:00] withstand any type of scrutiny under the brewing test uh and brewing actually explicitly states

[00:42:06] in the decision that you know the fact that uh you know the the ccw test they need to be applied

[00:42:15] in an objective standard uh and you cannot use subjective requirements that can vary and change uh

[00:42:23] and this good moral character uh is a horribly subjective requirement like well what is good moral

[00:42:31] character does it mean you've never committed a crime does it mean you have a bunch of reference

[00:42:36] letters does you know you got to get the pastor of your church to say like yeah this guy goes to

[00:42:41] church on sunday every sunday never misses a beat i really you know tell me what good moral character

[00:42:47] is in the eyes of the state uh that's not entirely subjective and i haven't seen uh any language

[00:42:58] in any type of ccw requirement with this uh good moral good moral character requirement

[00:43:05] that's not subjective i believe a lot of counties and the sheriffs their

[00:43:13] unwritten opinion is good moral characters you're not uh you don't have any convictions of

[00:43:17] any serious crimes um but again even that is okay well what kind of crime would make you

[00:43:25] ineligible for ccw is it only nonviolent crimes is it some misdemeanors all felonies what's that

[00:43:33] so i don't believe that this good moral character approach is constitutional in any way

[00:43:37] i think that the psych evaluation again is even more uh subjective and anyone who's you know

[00:43:46] sits and goes well you know if you have a psychiatrist they they have their professional opinion

[00:43:50] and they give it um you know that that seems like a pretty objective sanity of a medical

[00:43:56] professional making determination the fact is anyone is dealt with expert testimony

[00:44:02] knows that i can find an expert for any for any opinion egg i can then go find an expert

[00:44:09] for the exact opposite opinion beat uh there's no shortage of shortage of experts that will have

[00:44:15] contrasting opinions and so why we call it the battle of the experts when you do uh have that

[00:44:20] in litigation you know there's always an expert that'll say something different than another one

[00:44:26] so it's not objective in any way to require psyche vows uh and i don't believe that they would

[00:44:35] withstand any type of uh real grown announce at all so hit me up send me an email let me know

[00:44:41] what the language is um i mean we did just live through two years i'll go ahead can him

[00:44:49] sorry i just to go back to is sp 452 and you some did sign it that requires the micro stamping

[00:44:57] including on ghost gun parts yeah and it's like you know they've never even shown that micro stamping

[00:45:03] can be implemented on a fire there's not even a single prototype in this country that it even works

[00:45:08] let alone the fact that you can file off any micro stamping with a 99 cent file in about three

[00:45:14] seconds it's not like this is ever gonna help but yeah so uh but going back to the the ccw stuff

[00:45:23] yeah i think that county sheriffs really need to go back and review what standards they have um you know

[00:45:32] although a lot of them went back and got rid of the good cause requirement uh they need to go

[00:45:39] back again and really look at what brewing says and look at what their requirements are because i

[00:45:46] don't see any justification for uh those types of requirements of moral character psyche vows

[00:45:53] or letters of recommendation it's all entirely subjective and you know has no support

[00:46:01] yeah i was just gonna say before we did live through about two years where you could get any

[00:46:06] expert in putting experts in quote to get up on tv or or parrot whatever the state wants them to say so

[00:46:15] the idea that medical experts can be completely objective and not subjective is i think a falsity at

[00:46:22] this point i agree with you um i mean yeah what if it comes to the point where they're like if you

[00:46:28] didn't learn that from coven yeah i don't know if you're ever gonna learn it but uh yeah there's no

[00:46:34] question that the uh this is not a matter that can be cited by some you know third party expert

[00:46:41] running like uh so you should let your sheriff know or rivers and charges ccw process

[00:46:48] be like you need to get rid of this or else um you know if i get a lawsuit done in the room

[00:46:53] check on first i just looked uh this this month i guess in the last month or so

[00:47:00] knew some actually signed over 20 laws that are regulating firearms uh i think it's 20

[00:47:08] new ones so uh you know uh Chuck Michelle with the Michelle Associates they have their

[00:47:14] uh California gun laws book and i remember just when it first came out you know he do a new

[00:47:21] addition every year every other year now i think they're on their 12th edition because

[00:47:27] they're changing laws so much he's got to rewrite the book every three to six months it's absurd

[00:47:34] but i laugh at it in the sense of it's just crazy that they got to write additions to this new book

[00:47:41] so often uh it's it's absurd and like i said the laws that they're signing that they're mad

[00:47:49] that brewing decided what it did and they're mad that they can't use this old test and old standard

[00:47:56] anymore so because of that they're just passing anything they can to literally just stick it to

[00:48:03] gun owners and uh their citizens and it's a horrendous thing but it's true

[00:48:10] now it's to kind of give people some hope because i get this question a lot about

[00:48:17] well they keep passing these laws and then we take them to court and then they appeal and then

[00:48:21] it goes up to the ninth circus and then we we go round and round and round and it never gets resolved

[00:48:28] my whole thing is keep passing these laws because you're just going to build more case precedence

[00:48:35] and further strengthen second amendment rights is that a correct way to think about all these laws

[00:48:41] that are that they're trying to pass um because it's just going to create more i mean i think

[00:48:47] we're supporting our rights um yeah i think that's a good way of looking at it for sure because

[00:48:54] like i was saying you know the laws that they're passing they're just mad and so they're just

[00:48:58] passing anything they can uh to the point where it's just you know absurdity you know i think it's

[00:49:03] s b two that's trying to basically make the entire state of california and every public place

[00:49:08] in the state a quote sensitive place where you can't carry even if you have a permanent

[00:49:14] to care i mean it's like that's absurd you know we all know that's absurd um so and we all know

[00:49:21] that that's not gonna stand under a broona no in fact like they literally said in broona you can't

[00:49:27] make the entire ablum and hatton a sensitive place it just doesn't work so you know i think

[00:49:35] that by doing that they're going to create their own bad precedence that's true um

[00:49:41] um uh i also think you know if you're mad about having to go to court fight for your rights

[00:49:51] you know wait the you know three to ten years to get through the court process and then have

[00:49:58] you know the decision in your favor if that anger's you and you're not doing everything you can to

[00:50:04] get local representatives and state representatives and federal representatives that are

[00:50:09] pro-second amendment like in office then you should just keep your mouth shut and don't complain

[00:50:18] because there's a reason why we we are dealing with this in the long run it's because for years

[00:50:25] we just let uh anti-second amendment uh representatives in the office that had no respect for the constitution

[00:50:32] no respect for your fundamental rights and we allowed them in office by being complacent and

[00:50:38] that's just the truth of the matter um and because of that we now have individuals and representatives

[00:50:45] ingrained that are just dishing out this type of legislation um you know so if you want to play

[00:50:51] the long game and truly win then you got to be active at the very least you got to be voting and

[00:50:57] know who you're voting for to get people that actually support your rights that would defend

[00:51:02] the second amendment and your other your other you know the other bill of rights and your other

[00:51:05] fundamental rights in office and if you have those people in office you're not going to deal with

[00:51:11] a bunch of laws being passed that violate your rights so that's the you know back it up long game

[00:51:18] of it all um if you're not at least being aware of who's running who's in office and who you're

[00:51:26] voting for it's your own fault now on the other side of that there's always going to be some laws

[00:51:32] that are going to be passed you know they get through the cracks even if you have a lot of

[00:51:36] you know good representatives um and we got to go through the court process the fact is we now

[00:51:42] have a standard that truly applies the constitution truly applies the Supreme Court precedent and so

[00:51:48] while it is going to be a fight that's going to take a while because you do have to get through

[00:51:52] court process and you know the good thing about you know that is that we all have you know two

[00:51:59] process rights and you know you are entitled to appeals and you know even though we may not like it

[00:52:06] the state's going to appeal these decisions we're going to have to keep fighting them but we still

[00:52:10] have the constitution's Supreme Court precedent and our evidence on our side we now have a standard

[00:52:18] that is a true application of you know the constitution so that's benefiting us um so I think we're

[00:52:28] going to end up on the winning side of this you know you add in your point of yeah they're

[00:52:33] going to build bad precedent for themselves where we're going to continue to get cases that apply

[00:52:38] the brewing decision the right way and you know determine that these crazy laws are unconstitutional

[00:52:43] so yeah it's going to be a battle and you know the battle is not going to be over tomorrow but

[00:52:47] there's no question that the game has completely changed um you know you talked to me back in 2019

[00:52:55] 2020 we would have had a very different conversation of you know the outlook I've always believed in what

[00:53:01] we argue in these cases and in this litigation I believe that their sound arguments and they're

[00:53:07] supported by the evidence but I want to tell you like this is it we're not climbing a hill we're

[00:53:11] not you know going up a hill for this this is a you know we're free climbing half dome l captain

[00:53:18] this is how difficult this fight's going to be the fight still difficult but it dramatically has

[00:53:23] shifted in our face yeah especially as someone who is a card carrying a cc w holder sp2 definitely

[00:53:33] worries me but I have faith that eventually will be overturned so but it'll just yeah yeah

[00:53:41] yeah so I know yes it's not going to be over tomorrow yeah you know it doesn't change things right

[00:53:47] away but this is a monumental win to have a case like this come out of the California and the

[00:53:58] district courts in California and I think it's the start of something good so we got a couple

[00:54:05] minutes left um I guess the last thing I want to ask you in terms of you know it's hard to really

[00:54:13] kind of sum up we've touched on so many things um would you give the people who are watching or

[00:54:20] listening at home would you say there's reason to be optimistic is there a brighter future for

[00:54:25] second amendment rights here in California on the horizon or is it going to be dark for a little bit

[00:54:29] longer oh I definitely say there's a brighter future there's no doubt about that like I was saying

[00:54:34] the landscape has shifted uh well it's you know the winds are in our favor um but that's not to say

[00:54:41] there's not going to be a dog fight for a little while especially while we're getting these

[00:54:46] bills that are being passed just to kind of because they're mad about brewing so yeah there's going

[00:54:52] to be litigation fights uh especially in states like California who tend to be the leaders in

[00:54:59] passing these you know when constitutional laws we're gonna have to settle that out and that's

[00:55:04] gonna you know take a while anywhere for five to ten years if you're talking about all the different

[00:55:10] cases challenging all different laws going up and down the court system but it's undeniable that

[00:55:18] even with that fight ahead of us we are in much much better territory uh with the limitation

[00:55:28] that these courts have now have on them from the Supreme Court that they can't just apply whatever

[00:55:33] tests they want they can't just you know make up any justification uh that they want to uphold

[00:55:40] these bans they got to actually go back it's like it's a fact about it they got to go back and find

[00:55:45] laws that will justify the current law and then you know the laws either they're or they're not

[00:55:51] if they're not there there's no justification so um this is it's going to be a lot harder for

[00:55:57] you know states to kind of weasel around and get around the brewing decision you know

[00:56:05] so I think it'll be very beneficial going forward awesome well john um thank you for coming on

[00:56:13] tonight and kind of dissecting all of this for us why don't you tell everybody where they can find

[00:56:17] you follow you interact with you contact you if they have any second amendment questions

[00:56:22] yeah so uh again with the Dylan Law Group and Carlsbad California uh my email address is

[00:56:31] jdilan dilin llln at dillinlawgp.com I also have c a firearms lawyer on instagram twitter x whatever

[00:56:44] is called now um so you can always contact me in any way like that um yeah always available to talk

[00:56:52] guns no problem well I'd like to have you gone again uh when i'm not dying of sickness so let's

[00:56:59] have you on again real soon we could dive into some more legal issues and really get in the weeds

[00:57:04] about this constitutional stuff um which i love to nerd out about yes that was great awesome

[00:57:10] well as i like to end every show thank you for watching um cameo had to dip out early

[00:57:18] but just the end as we end every show if you like it make sure you like share subscribe review

[00:57:25] all of that stuff and the best way to support this show that's absolutely free is you can share

[00:57:30] with somebody and in this case share it with someone who's a second amendment supporter here in

[00:57:34] california and share john with them so that they know that they have john as a resource so with that

[00:57:42] have a good night everybody thank you

[00:57:56] thank you for listening to another episode of california underground if you like what you heard

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