The State : Local Bans on Guns to Stand

City bans on military-style assault weapons will remain in effect until a new state law goes into effect Jan. 1, a state appeals court ruled. The 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco sidestepped the legality of the controversial ban on assault rifles by the cities of Los Angeles, Stockton and Berkeley and by Santa Clara County, saying the passage of separate state limits makes a legal ruling unnecessary. Thus the laws passed in the wake of Patrick Purdy’s massacre of five children in Stockton will be allowed to remain in effect. The court said it would “serve no purpose” to rule when the laws will be moot when state limits on military-style assault weapons will take effect Jan. 1. The question that gun owners and the National Rifle Assn. wanted resolved was whether state power to regulate possession and use of weapons preempted local municipalities from enacting their own laws.