The state attorney general has already vowed to appeal the decision.<\/b>
\nA federal judge overturned California\u2019s 32-year-old ban on assault weapons, calling the law unconstitutional in a Friday decision that compared AR-15s to Swiss Army knives, setting the stage for an appeals court battle over one of the country\u2019s oldest assault weapons bans. Federal district and appeals court judges have upheld similar assault weapon bans in Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Chicago and Washington, D.C., in recent years. The Supreme Court chose not to hear challenges to Connecticut and New York\u2019s assault weapons bans in 2016, but the court has grown more conservative since then. California first passed an assault weapons ban in 1989, barring its residents from buying certain types of semiautomatic guns. The law has outlasted a federal ban on assault weapons that was passed in 1994 and expired in 2004, and since then, guns like the AR-15 have become popular in many states even as places like California restrict them. Gun advocates argue banning rifles like AR-15s is arbitrary and unnecessary for public safety, but supporters of gun control warn these firearms are regularly used in high-profile mass shootings and are designed to be more lethal than other weapons. \u201cLike the Swiss Army Knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment,\u201d Benitez wrote in his decision. \u201cYet, the State of California makes it a crime to have an AR15 type rifle.\u201d \u201cThere is no sound basis in law, fact, or common sense for equating assault rifles with swiss army knives \u2014 especially on Gun Violence Awareness Day and after the recent shootings in our own California communities,\u201d Bonta said.<\/p>\n