Sharp v. Becerra - CA DOJ Being Sued (again)

[Subdeacon Joe]

"SACRAMENTO, CA (July 11, 2018) — Today, attorneys for three gun owners and four civil rights organizations filed a new lawsuit and petition for writ of mandate that claims California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and his Department of Justice (DOJ) violated their civil rights protected under the state and federal constitutions."

 

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1. Since 1989, the State of California has regulated the acquisition, possession, and use of firearms using an ever-expanding definition of so-called “assault weapons” and by and through an aggressive enforcement of an ever-expanding statutory scheme. In 2016, the State once again broadened the “assault weapons” statutes to include more semi-automatic firearms with a magazine locking device, colloquially known as “bullet buttons.”1

2. The possession, transportation, and use of unregistered “assault weapons” carries criminal liability to otherwise law-abiding citizens, in addition to the potential loss of their property, fines, and standing in the community. Thus, many law-abiding California citizens, desiring to abide by the laws of our State, have opted to comply with the laws and register their eligible firearms so as to remain in good standing with the law.

3. But many law-abiding gun owners, including the Individual Plaintiffs and many members of the Institutional Plaintiffs here, have been denied their right and ability to register such eligible firearms in accordance with the registration mandates of Penal Code §§ 30680 and 30900(b) because Defendants Attorney General Xavier Becerra and the California Department of Justice (DOJ) have utterly failed and refused in their statutorily-imposed duties to the People of the State of California to establish a properly functioning Internet-based system for processing the registration of such firearms. The system that DOJ has set up and maintained, the California Firearms Application Reporting System (CFARS), was known by Defendants to be flawed, intermittently inoperable, and ultimately incapable of providing a reliable means for the public to register their firearms in accordance with the law.

4. Things came to an ignominious conclusion the week before the statutory registration deadline. During the week of Monday, June 25, 2018, through Saturday, June 30, 2018, the statutory deadline, and beyond, the DOJ’s registration system was largely inaccessible, and inoperable on a wide variety of ordinary web browsers across the state. Users who were able to access the site were prevented from completing the process before the Internet-based registration system crashed, obliterating the hours-long progress they had made. As a result, many individuals, including the individual plaintiffs herein, were prevented from timely registering before July 1 in compliance with the law due to no fault of their own.

5. In this case, Plaintiffs seek an un-extraordinary result, compelled by the basic tenets of due process: That they simply be allowed to register their eligible firearms and comply with the law, and that the Attorney General, the DOJ, and their officers and agents similarly comply with the law by allowing such registrations and ensuring they are properly and timely processed through a functioning online database as they have been required by statute to do.

6. Plaintiffs seek mandamus, declaratory and injunctive relief as necessary and proper to remedy the DOJ’s failures to permit and provide for a functional registration system throughout the registration period, including and especially during the last week of June 2018.

.....

18. Individual Plaintiffs Sharp, Ajirogi, and Gilardy are bringing this claim on behalf of themselves, and as representatives of a class of similar individuals consisting of law-abiding California residents too numerous to individually name or include as parties to this action. These are: California citizens who are not otherwise prohibited or exempt under the “assault weapon” registration laws, and who lawfully and legally possessed firearms that the State of California has retroactively classified as “assault weapons” under Penal Code § 30515(a) that must be registered as such pursuant to Penal Code sections 30680 and 30900(b), but who have been precluded from doing so due to the inaccessibility and/or non-functionality of the DOJ’s CFARS system during the week of June 25, 2018 and continuing through the registration deadline of June 30, 2018..

 

 

see also: https://www.firearmspolicy.org/california-attorney-general-xavier-becerra-doj-sued-in-new-assault-weapons-lawsuit

[Blackwater 53393]

I HOPE that the California anti-gun criminals get their butts kicked back to the Stone Age!!!