**Well, folks, we lost one of the good ones.**
Judge Roger T. Benitez — the man gun owners affectionately called "Saint Benitez" — retired on April 2nd after spending decades on the federal bench. And let me tell you, his leaving is a big deal for anyone who cares about the Second Amendment.
This guy got it. Born in Havana in 1950, he watched his family escape Castro's Cuba in 1960. He knew firsthand what happens when government has unlimited power over citizens. That's probably why he never bought into the anti-gun crowd's nonsense about "reasonable regulations."
**The Man Who Gave Us Freedom Week**
Benitez first made waves with his 2019 ruling in *Duncan v. Becerra*. He struck down California's magazine ban, and for exactly one week — "Freedom Week" — gun owners could actually buy the magazines California had stolen from them. Hundreds of thousands of standard-capacity magazines flooded into the state before the Ninth Circuit put a stop to it. That one week alone proved what we've been saying all along: law-abiding citizens don't abuse these guns and magazines. They just want to own them.
**California Keeps Losing — But Keeps Appealing**
Seven years later, that case is *still* bouncing around the courts. Benitez ruled the magazine ban unconstitutional again in 2023. The Ninth Circuit, in yet another act of judicial activism, reversed him en banc. Now it's back at the Supreme Court — again.
But Benitez didn't stop there. He also struck down California's ban on AR-15s and similar firearms. He ruled their ammunition background check law was unconstitutional too. And he even took on California's "billy club" ban after the *Bruen* decision.
**The Bottom Line**
At 75 years old, Benitez is hanging up his robe. He leaves behind a legacy of well-reasoned opinions that actually *read* the Constitution instead of twisting it to fit an anti-gun agenda. California politicians and the Ninth Circuit have spent nearly a decade trying to overturn his rulings, but they keep running into the same problem: the law was on his side.
Now we wait to see if the Supreme Court will finally give him the final vindication he earned — or if they'll leave California gun owners hanging, just like they've done before.
Here's hoping SCOTUS does the right thing. Saint Benitez certainly deserved it.