Important Judicial Decisions Regarding Self-Defense Law

The following legal decisions concern the law of self-defense. Some of the rulings are final and others are not. They’re presented here to be read for their excellent judicial logic about the absolute right of armed self-defense as established by the framers of the US Constitution.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, USA State Constitutions Providing for Armed Self-Defense ]

Superior Court of Washington for Cowlitz County ruling: State of Washington v. Gator’s Custom Guns, Inc. and Walter L. Wentz (April 8, 2024) by Superior Court Judge Gary B. Bashor (pdf).
This ruling says the State of Washington’s law making it illegal to sell or possess magazines with more than ten round capacities is unconstitutional.

“A law which hinders, limits, or decreases the right to keep and bear arms implicates the text of the Second Amendment.”

“Magazines have no other design purpose than as a weapon. No one is going to butter a sandwich or dice carrots with a magazine of any size. Magazines are only useful as weapons.”

“Anything that constitutes a bearable arm that could be worn for self-defense or employed for either offense or defense against another person would fall under the historical definition of Arm.”

“Under the penumbra of rights of the Second Amendment, the right to acquire arms is necessary to exercise the core purpose of the right. Included is the right to acquire a fully functional weapon. Were this court to hold individuals have no legal right way to acquire protected arms, such a ruling would eviscerate the core purpose of the right….If a significant number of people lawfully own magazines with a capacity over ten nationally, and their intent is to use them lawfully for self-defense, that is sufficient.”

“In fundamental rights cases such as this, it is presumed that civilians exercising the right to bear arms intend to do so lawfully. Therefore, it is offensive to prospectively limit or hinder the right. We do not prohibit speech generally with the expectation offensive words will be spoken. Such action would be chilling and unconstitutional.” *

US District Court for the Southern District of California ruling: Nguyen v. Bonta (March 11, 2024) by US District Judge William Q. Hayes (pdf).
This ruling says California cannot limit how many firearms a lawful buyer can purchase in a month.

“Nothing in the text of the Second Amendment suggests that the Second Amendment right is limited to possession and acquisition of a single firearm, or that the acquisition of additional firearms is inherently subject to additional limitations—if anything, the usage of the term ‘arms’ in plural suggests the opposite.” *

US District Court for the Southern District of California ruling: Kim Rhode, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Rob Bonta, in his official capacity as Attorney General of the State of California, Defendant (January 30, 2024) by Senior US District Judge Roger Benitez (pdf).
This ruling says, “the California ammunition background check laws violate a citizen’s right to bear arms….Because these laws are not consistent with the Nation’s history and tradition, they must yield to the Constitution.”

“Today, a person may choose to submit to a full credit check to buy an automobile. But he is not required to pass the same credit check every time he needs to refill his car with gas or recharge his battery at a charging station. And the Constitution does not mention a right to own automobiles (or carriages or horses). Similarly, when a person chooses to buy a firearm, he is required to undergo a full background check. However, until now, he was not required to also go through a background check every time he needs to refill his gun with ammunition. And the Bill of Rights commands that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. With the recently enacted ammunition background check laws, gun owners in California undergo background checks more than one million times each year simply to buy ammunition. They are not allowed to buy ammunition from out-of-state vendors and have it delivered to their homes. They are not allowed to buy ammunition in Arizona or Nevada and bring it with them back into California. Though they are citizens entitled to enjoy all of the constitutional rights, Californians are denied the Second Amendment right to buy ammunition for self-defense at least 11% of the time because of problems with the background check system.”

“Because ammunition sale prohibitions and regulations are covered by the Second Amendment, the presumption is that such restrictions are infringements.”

“The State’s compilation lists 48 laws which made it a crime to possess a gun and ammunition by Negros, Mulattos, slaves, or persons of color, and two laws that prohibited sales to Indians. For example, the Attorney General lists a 1798 Kentucky law which prohibited any “Negro, mulatto, or Indian” from possessing any gun or ammunition. An 1846 North Carolina law offers another example wherein it was prohibited to sell or deliver firearms to ‘any slave.’ This is the third time the Attorney General has cited these laws in support for its laws and restrictions implicating the Second Amendment. These fifty laws identified by the Attorney General constitute a long, embarrassing, disgusting, insidious, reprehensible list of examples of government tyranny towards our own people….At the time these laws existed, neither people of color, nor native Americans were considered citizens of the United States. So, it makes little sense to argue, as the Attorney General implicitly does, that historical restrictions placed on non-citizens, who were not accorded constitutional protections, now justify placing similar modern restrictions on citizens who do enjoy constitutional rights….[T]hese repugnant historical examples of prejudice and bigotry will not be used to justify the State’s current infringement on the constitutional rights of citizens.”

“The state’s ammunition background check regime…treats all citizens as if they do not enjoy a right to buy ammunition. It forces Americans to entreat and supplicate the state for permission. Only when the State is satisfied that a citizen has proven that they meet the qualifications – only then – does the state issue its stamp of authorization….This is not the language of a right; this is the language of a government license or grant of a privilege.”

“A sweeping background check requirement imposed every time a citizen needs to buy ammunition is an outlier that our ancestors would have never accepted for a citizen. Therefore, California’s ammunition background check system laws are unconstitutional and shall not be enforced.”

“The ammunition background checks laws have no historical pedigree and operate in such a way that they violate the Second Amendment right of citizens to keep and bear arms.” *

US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruling: Madison M. Lara; Sophia Knepley; Logan D. Miller; Second Amendment Foundation, Inc.; Firearms Policy Coalition, Appellants v. Commissioner Pennsylvania State Police (January 18, 2024) by Circuit Judge Kent A. Jordan (pdf).
This ruling says, “The words ‘the people’ in the Second Amendment presumptively encompass all adult Americans, including 18-to-20-year-olds, and we are aware of no founding-era law that supports disarming people in that age group.”

“It is undisputed that 18-to-20-year-olds are among ‘the people’ for other constitutional rights such as the right to vote, freedom of speech, peaceable assembly, government petitions, and the right against unreasonable government searches and seizures….[T]here is no reason to adopt an inconsistent reading of ‘the people.’ Indeed, wholesale exclusion of 18-to-20-year-olds from the scope of the Second Amendment would impermissibly render the constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense … a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.” *

US District Court for the Middle District of Florida ruling: United States of America v. Emmanuel Ayala, Defendant (January 12, 2024) by US District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle (pdf).
This ruling says, “A blanket restriction on firearms possession in post offices is incongruent with the American tradition of firearms regulation.”

“[N]othing in Supreme Court dicta establishes that the United States may ban firearms in all government buildings.”

“Regulations that sweep beyond our historical tradition flout the Second Amendment’s unqualified command that the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

“Possessing a firearm in a Federal facility is an activity that falls within the plain text of the Second Amendment…. there is no historical practice of a near-total prohibition on firearms in ordinary post offices and there is no relevantly similar historical analogue supporting such a prohibition.” *

US District Court for the Central District of California Southern Division ruling: Reno May, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Robert Bonta, in his official capacity as Attorney General of the State of California, and Does 1-10, Defendant, and Marco Antonio Carralero, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Rob Bonta, in his official capacity as Attorney General of California, Defendant (December 20, 2023) by US District Judge Cormac J. Carney (pdf).
This ruling says, “The Second Amendment preserves a fundamental constitutional right for law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms for self-defense….[and] to carry a handgun in public for self-defense.”

“We live in dangerous times….The right to self-defense and to defend one’s family is fundamental and inherent to our very humanity irrespective of any formal codification. In their wisdom, the Founders recognized the need for individual citizens to protect themselves and their loved ones from those that would do them harm—and they knew that such a right could not be vindicated without the right to bear arms. The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees law-abiding, responsible citizens the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense in case of confrontation.”

“[T]he Constitution, by design, recognizes that some rights are…important and sacrosanct….No one—not a federal judge, not a state governor or legislator, not even the President of the United States—is above the Constitution.”

“The Second Amendment gives law-abiding individuals the right to carry firearms for self-defense outside the home, and [n]othing in the Nation’s history or traditions presumptively closes the door on that right across every place of worship or religious observation.”

“Simply put, CCW permitholders are not the gun wielders legislators should fear….Indeed, CCW permitholders are not responsible for any of the mass shootings or horrific gun violence that has occurred in California….CCW permitholders are among the most responsible, reliable law-abiding citizens.” *

US District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia ruling: Steven Robert Brown, Benjamin Weekley, Second Amendment Foundation, and West Virginia Citizens Defense League v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Merrick Garland, US Attorney General, in his official capacity, and Steven Dettelbach, Director of the ATF, in his official capacity (December 1, 2023) by US District Chief Judge Thomas S. Kleeh (pdf).
This ruling says, “Deprivation of a constitutional right is a deprivation and, necessarily, an injury in fact, no matter if an ‘easy’ and lawful work-around exists….Although the Second Amendment does not expressly protect the right to ‘purchase’ firearms, that right must exist by implication if the right to ‘keep and bear arms’ is to have its full meaning and effect. Commonsense and logic tell us that, unless one is a maker of guns, the right to ‘keep’/have a gun necessarily means that one must purchase it, steal it, be given it by another, or find one that another has lost.”

“If you do not already own a handgun, then the only way to ‘keep’ or ‘bear’ one is to get one, either through sale, rental, or gift.”

“[T]he Second Amendment does not serve to grant a right but rather preserves a right that the people already possessed. Therefore, to ‘keep and bear’ serves to identify the right protected, not to define the right in the first instance. The definition of ‘infringe’ further supports the conclusion that the pre-existing right includes a right to purchase.”

“Not simply protecting the heartland of the preserved right, the Second Amendment protects the environs surrounding it to prevent any encroachment on the core protections. Thus, by virtue of the word ‘infringed,’ the Second Amendment’s protective textual embrace includes the conduct necessary to exercise the right (‘to keep and bear’) and that, as explained above, includes the right to purchase arms so that one can keep and bear them.

“Next, the Court analyzes whether, under the Second Amendment, ‘ordinary, law-abiding, adult citizens’ between the ages of 18- to-20 years, are part of ‘the people’ whom the Second Amendment protects. The Court finds that they are. Initially, the Court starts with the actual text of the Second Amendment which is silent as to any age requirements or restrictions on the rights enshrined therein. That omission is significant when compared to other Constitutional provisions. For example, minimum age requirements are constitutionally imposed on membership in the House of Representatives (25 years of age), the United States Senate (30 years age) and, of course, the office of President of the United States (35 years of age). Clearly, the authors of the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights contemplated age restrictions during their drafting work. The Second Amendment only refers to ‘the people.’”

“Therefore, because neither the First nor Fourth Amendments exclude, nor have been interpreted to exclude, 18-to-20-year-olds, the Court can discern no reason to read an implicit age restriction into the Second Amendment’s plain text either….[R]egarding the Eighth Amendment, the Supreme Court has said that where ‘a line must be drawn,’ ‘[t]he age of 18 is the point where society draws the line for many purposes between childhood and adulthood.’” *

US District Court for the Southern District of California ruling: James Miller, et al., v. Rob Bonta, Attorney General of the State of California, et al., (October 19, 2023) by Senior US District Judge Roger Benitez (pdf).
This ruling says, “Guns for self-defense are needed a lot because crime happens a lot. A recent large-scale survey estimates that guns are needed defensively approximately 1,670,000 times a year. Another report, originally commissioned and long cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, estimated that there are between 500,000 and 3,000,000 defensive gun uses in the United States each year. That is a lot of situations where Jane Doe needs a firearm to defend herself and her family. Trial testimony from hoodlums is not needed to prove that a homeowner brandishing an AR-15 can be a strong deterrent to criminal attackers.”

“Like a cut diamond, the uniquely American right to keep and bear arms is multifaceted. The unalienable right to have firearms for self-defense existed before the Bill of Rights and today remains the central protection of the Second Amendment. It is a right that was recognized in English common law and in the American colonies.”

“There is only one policy enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Guns and ammunition in the hands of criminals, tyrants and terrorists are dangerous; guns in the hands of law-abiding responsible citizens are necessary. To give full life to the core right of self-defense, every law-abiding responsible individual citizen has a constitutionally protected right to keep and bear firearms commonly owned and kept for lawful purposes. In early America and today, the Second Amendment right of self-preservation permits a citizen to ‘repel force by force’ when ‘the intervention of society in his behalf, may be too late to prevent that injury.’ Unfortunately, governments tend to restrict the right of armed self-defense. Punishing every good citizen because bad ones misuse a gun offends the Constitution. A state supreme court in 1878 said it succinctly: ‘If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege.’” *

[ Read the SemperVerus article, Senior US District Judge Rules California’s Ban on AR-15s to Be Unconstitutional ]

US District Court for the Southern District of California ruling: Virginia Duncan, et al. v. Rob Bonta, Attorney General of the State of California (September 22, 2023) by Senior US District Judge Roger Benitez (pdf).
This ruling says, “Removable firearm magazines of all sizes are necessary components of semiautomatic firearms. Therefore, magazines come within the text of the constitutional declaration that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Because millions of removable firearm magazines able to hold between 10 and 30 rounds are commonly owned by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, including self-defense, and because they are reasonably related to service in the militia, the magazines are presumptively within the protection of the Second Amendment. There is no American history or tradition of regulating firearms based on the number of rounds they can shoot, or of regulating the amount of ammunition that can be kept and carried. The best analogue that can be drawn from historical gun laws are the early militia equipment regulations that required all able-bodied citizens to equip themselves with a gun and a minimum amount of ammunition in excess of 10 rounds.”

“One government solution to a few mad men with guns is a law that makes into criminals responsible, law-abiding people wanting larger magazines simply to protect themselves. The history and tradition of the Second Amendment clearly supports state laws against the use or misuse of firearms with unlawful intent, but not the disarmament of the law-abiding citizen. That kind of a solution is an infringement on the Constitutional right of citizens to keep and bear arms. The adoption of the Second Amendment was a freedom calculus decided long ago by our first citizens who cherished individual freedom with its risks more than the subservient security of a British ruler or the smothering safety of domestic lawmakers. The freedom they fought for was worth fighting for then, and that freedom is entitled to be preserved still.” *

[ Read the SemperVerus article, Senior US District Judge Declares Gun Magazine Capacity Limits Unconstitutional ]

US District Court for the Southern District of California, Southern Division ruling: Lance Boland, Mario Santellan, Reno May, Jerome Schammel, and California Rifle & Pistol Association, Incorporated, v. Robert Bonta, Attorney General of the State of California, and Does 1-10 (March 20, 2023) by US District Judge Cormac J. Carney (pdf).
This ruling says “the Second Amendment enshrines a fundamental constitutional right for law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms for self-defense. Increasingly in modern times, with ‘the ubiquity of guns and our country’s high level of gun violence,’ ordinary lawabiding people feel a need to possess handguns to protect themselves against violence. The right to possess firearms for protection implies a corresponding right to acquire and maintain proficiency in their use, the core right wouldn’t mean much without the training and practice that makes it effective.” *
US District Court for the District of Delaware ruling: John Rigby, Alan Knight, and Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc. v. Kathy Jennings, Attorney General of Delaware (September 23, 2022) by District Judge Maryellen Noreika (pdf).
This ruling says “the right to keep and bear arms implies a corresponding right to manufacture arms. Indeed, the right to keep and bear arms would be meaningless if no individual or entity could manufacture a firearm.” *

[ Read SemperVerus articles on the subject of the 2nd Amendment ]

US Supreme Court ruling: New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc., et al. v. Bruen, Superintendent of New York State Police, et al. (June 23, 2022) by Justice Clarence Thomas (pdf).
This ruling says the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home; and reiterates earlier rulings that individual self-defense is “the central component” of the Second Amendment’s “unqualified command.” *

[ Read the SemperVerus article, US Supreme Court Affirms Right to Carry Arms in Public for Self-Defense ]

US Supreme Court ruling: District of Columbia, et al., v. Dick Anthony Heller (June 26, 2008) by Associate Justice Antonin Scalia (pdf).
This ruling says the Second Amendment to the US Constitution should be read to guarantee an individual’s right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation; that the “inherent right to self-defense” is a critical component of the Second Amendment; and that the handgun is the “quintessential self-defense weapon.” *

US Supreme Court ruling: McDonald, et al., v. City of Chicago, Illinois, (June 28, 2010) by Associate Justice Samuel Alito (pdf).
This ruling says rights that are “fundamental to the Nation’s scheme of ordered liberty” or that are “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition” are appropriately applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court recognized in Heller that the right to self-defense was one such “fundamental” and “deeply rooted” right. *
US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s dissent in the cert denial of Rogers v. Grewal (June 15, 2020) (pdf).
“The right to ‘bear arms’ refers to the right to ‘wear, bear, or carry upon the person or in the clothing or in a pocket, for the purpose of being armed and ready for offensive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another person’….Cases and treatises from England, the founding era, and the antebellum period confirm that the right to bear arms includes the right to carry in public….[I]n several jurisdictions throughout the country, law-abiding citizens have been barred from exercising the fundamental right to bear arms because they cannot show that they have a ‘justifiable need’ or ‘good reason’ for doing so. One would think that such an onerous burden on a fundamental right would warrant this Court’s review. This Court would almost certainly review the constitutionality of a law requiring citizens to establish a justifiable need before exercising their free speech rights….But today, faced with a petition challenging just such a restriction on citizens’ Second Amendment rights, the Court simply looks the other way.”
US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruling: Virginia Duncan, et al., v. State of California (August 14, 2020) by Circuit Judge Kenneth K. Lee (pdf).
This ruling declared that firearm magazines are protected arms under the Second Amendment, and that magazine capacities of more than 10 rounds are commonly owned and typically used for lawful purposes, and are not “unusual arms” that would fall outside the scope of the Second Amendment; “California’s almost blanket ban on [such magazines] goes too far in substantially burdening the people’s right to self-defense.” *
US District Court for the Southern District of California ruling: Virginia Duncan, et al., v. State of California (March 29, 2019) by US District Judge Roger T. Benitez (pdf).
This ruling declared that a California state voter-approved ban on gun magazines of more than 10-round capacity was unconstitutional; a violation of the Second Amendment. *
US District Court for the Southern District of California ruling: Rhode v. Becerra (April 23, 2020) by US District Judge Roger T. Benitez (pdf)
This ruling says “California’s ammunition background check law defies common sense while unduly and severely burdening the Second Amendment rights of every responsible, gun-owning citizen desiring to lawfully buy ammunition.”
US District Court for the Southern District of California ruling: Miller v. Bonta (June 4, 2021) by US District Judge Roger T. Benitez (pdf)
This ruling says “Like the Swiss Army Knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment. Good for both home and battle, the AR-15 is the kind of versatile gun that lies at the intersection of the kinds of firearms protected under District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) and United States v Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939)….You might not know it, but this case is about what should be a muscular constitutional right and whether a state can force a gun policy choice that impinges on that right with a 30-year-old failed experiment. It should be an easy question and answer. Government is not free to impose its own new policy choices on American citizens where Constitutional rights are concerned. As Heller explains, the Second Amendment takes certain policy choices and removes them beyond the realm of permissible state action. California may certainly conceive of a policy that a modern rifle is dangerous in the hands of a criminal, and that therefore it is good public policy to keep modern rifles out of the hands of every citizen. The Second Amendment stands as a shield from government imposition of that policy….There is only one policy enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Guns and ammunition in the hands of criminals, tyrants, and terrorists are dangerous; guns in the hands of law-abiding responsible citizens are better. To give full life to the core right of self-defense, every law-abiding responsible individual citizen has a constitutionally protected right to keep and bear firearms commonly owned and kept for lawful purposes.” *
US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruling: Young v. State of Hawaii (July 24, 2018) by Senior US Circuit Judge Diarmuid Fionntain O’Scannlain (pdf)
This ruling says the US Second Amendment protects the right to carry a gun openly in public for self-defense. *
Illinois Second Judicial Circuit ruling: Illinois v. Vivian Claudine Brown (April 26, 2021) by Illinois Circuit Judge T. Scott Webb (pdf)
This ruling states, “The Bill of Rights to the Constitution of the United States….is ground zero for the convergence of order and liberty….If the right to bear arms and self-defense are truly core rights, there should be no burden on the citizenry to enjoy those rights.” *

[ Read the SemperVerus article, The 5 Elements of Self-Defense Law ]

For all the USA federal laws pertaining to firearms, see US Code Chapter 44—Firearm Laws and US Code Chapter 44—Firearm Laws Appendix, as well as USCCA’s Federal Defensive Firearms Laws.

Learn about USA state gun laws at

See a summary of legal action on the Firearms Policy Coalition Legal website

The Following Constitutional Summary
Is Provided by US District Judge Douglas P. Woodlock in McCarthy v. Baker

➢ The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution provides:
A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

➢ The Second Amendment “guarantee[s] the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 592 (2008).

➢ The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides in pertinent part:
No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

➢ The Second Amendment “is fully applicable to the States.” McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 750 (2010); see also id. at 805 (Thomas, J., concurring).

➢ The “core lawful purpose” of the right to keep and bear arms is “self-defense.” Heller, 554 U.S. at 571, 630; accord McDonald, 561 U.S. at 767-68.

➢ The Second Amendment “elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home.” Heller, 554 U.S. at 635.

➢ “Commercial regulations on the sale of firearms do not fall outside the scope of the Second Amendment[.]” United States v. Marzzarella, 614 F.3d 85, 92 n.8 (3d Cir. 2010). Rather, “prohibiting the commercial sale of firearms . . . would be untenable under Heller.” Id.

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