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A former police officer in Glendale, California has been given the green light in his quest to sue the city of Los Angeles as well as individual police officers who melted down hundreds of firearms from his private collection after they were seized in a criminal investigation.

On Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Wayne Wright, the former Glendale officer, has standing to pursue his civil case against the city and Detective James Edwards, who back in 2004 obtained a court order to destroy more than 300 guns from Wright’s collection.

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After Wright’s home was raided by police in 2004, he ended up pleading guilty to a single count of unlawful possession of an assault weapon, which a judge later reduced to a misdemeanor offense. Even after the case was resolved in court, however, the LAPD maintained possession of Wright’s gun collection. Eventually about 80 firearms were returned to Wright, but Det. James Edwards obtained an ex parte order in 2013 (nearly a decade after the guns had been seized) to melt down and destroy the remaining guns in the LAPD’s possession.

The opinion by Judge Paez notes that Wright and the city were in discussions about the return of his firearm collection when Edwards obtained the order allowing him to destroy the guns, and said that the subsequent smelting of the guns “constituted a permanent deprivation” of his civil rights.

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This is a surprisingly strong decision by the Ninth Circuit. Not only did the three-judge panel unanimously overturn the decision of U.S. District Judge Manuel Real, it places the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms on equal footing with the rest of our civil rights. That’s as it should be, of course, but it’s still a pleasant surprise to see coming out of the Ninth Circuit, long considered to be one of the most hostile appellate courts when it comes to the right to keep and bear arms.

Wright is seeking $4.8-million from the city and the officials named in his lawsuit, and thanks to the Ninth Circuit’s ruling, the legal challenge over the destruction of an impressive gun collection can now proceed. Hopefully Wright finds some justice, but there’s simply no way to replace the hundreds of firearms destroyed by the overzealous anti-gun officials in Los Angeles.

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https://bearingarms.com/cam-e/2020/12/03...XWlUzEbvORJHvv8

I, too, am shocked such a decision came out of the Ninth Circuit, but glad it did. I only wish the piece had been a little more forthcoming on why the police wanted to destroy his collection and a judge agreed.