Federal judge blocks California handgun safety law: Media Miss

A federal judge blocked part of a California law that requires certain handgun safety features. Features required on new handguns include an indicator that shows when the gun is loaded, a mechanism that prevents firing if the magazine isn’t fully inserted and the ability to stamp shell casings. The last feature makes it easy to identify which gun the shell casings came from.

All of the required safety features fall under California’s Unsafe Handgun Act, a law that barred people from purchasing handguns that don’t comply after 2013. However, guns with the features required under the law weren’t being manufactured after 2013.

In 2022, the California Rifle & Pistol Association and several individuals brought a lawsuit saying the law denied residents their Second Amendment rights. The lawsuit came the same year the U.S. Supreme Court blocked gun restrictions in New York.

U.S. District Court Judge Cormac Carney applied a similar ruling in the California case, writing “no handgun available in the world has all three of these features.” The state will stop enforcing the law when the judge’s preliminary injunction begins in two weeks, unless there’s an appeal.

“We will continue to lead efforts to advance and defend California’s gun safety laws,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement. “As we move forward to determine next steps in this case, Californians should know that this injunction has not gone into effect and that California’s important gun safety requirements related to the Unsafe Handgun Act remain in effect.”

Straight Arrow News aims to identify when stories are being underreported on either side of the political aisle and media landscape. This story is a Media Miss for left-leaning outlets, with most sources reporting it being either right-leaning or center-oriented outlets, according to Ground.News.