The Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms. That most definitely includes guns, something few would try to argue and even fewer could remotely do with any degree of effectiveness.

However, it isn't limited to guns. Arms are pretty much any weapon, and a lot of places have laws against non-gun weapons.

Unsurprisingly, one such place is California.

Shocking, I know.

You see, California didn't permit things like billy clubs. However, that law was challenged and who got the cast in the Ninth Circuit? Why Judge Benitez, of course. 

And unsurprisingly, he came down on the side of the Second Amendment.

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez ruled last week that the prohibition “unconstitutionally infringes the Second Amendment rights of American citizens” and enjoined the state from enforcing the law, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

...

Benitez declared in Sept. 2021 that California’s ban on such weapons qualified as “longstanding” and therefore did not violate the Second Amendment. But while that ruling was under appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen that altered the legal analysis for Second Amendment regulations.

The billy club case was sent back to Benitez to review under the new Bruen analysis. He decided that Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office, which is defending the case, failed to provide evidence of any historically similar prohibitions.

Bonta said the judge’s decision “defies logic” and the state has filed an appeal.

“The Supreme Court was clear that Bruen did not create a regulatory straitjacket for states - and we believe that the district court got this wrong. We will not stop in our efforts to protect the safety of communities,” Bonta said in a statement Monday.

Bonta is correct, Bruen did not create a straitjacket. However, it also says you have to illustrate that such a law has historical precedents during particular eras in American history, and a law created in 1917 doesn't automatically get that benefit.

Especially since billy clubs existed prior to the 14th Amendment incorporating the Bill of Rights so as to impact the states.

Bonta wants the courts to rubber-stamp literally every anti-Second Amendment law the state wants to pass and he wants the courts to ignore Bruen in order to facilitate that.

The truth of the matter is that blunt objects are still used by criminals regardless of the laws in question. They're easy to obtain elsewhere, which means darn near any trip out of state may well result in easy and ready access to such weapons.

And it's a billy club. Someone can make it themselves with a pocket knife if they so desired, for crying out loud, so a law like this doesn't really do anything. Kind of like literally every other anti-Second Amendment law in the state, really.

The prohibition on clubs, like any prohibition on a weapon, doesn't stop bad people from doing bad things. It's yet another attempt to blame the tool, not the tool using it.

Benitez is right to have ruled as he did and my hope is that while California is appealing the decision, they find nothing but disappointment.