(NewsNation) — The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals handed a win to California’s state government during a ruling this week that issued a stay on a previous ruling by a federal judge that blocked the implementation of the state’s ban on high-capacity magazines.
The liberal majority on the court wrote that “public interest tips in the favor of a stay” because “mass shootings nearly always involve large-capacity magazines.”
But the court’s more conservative judges dissented from that ruling, arguing that it was part of a group of decisions that offered a “blank check for governments to restrict firearms in any way they pleased.”
One of the plaintiffs in the case, California Rifle & Prison Association President Chuck Michel, expressed his disappointment with the court decision. But he said that the group “will continue to defend the rights of gun owners in California all the way to the Supreme Court.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, on the other hand, said that his office was “relieved that the court considered the public safety of Californians in its decision.”