A gun-rights group sued Thursday to block California from enforcing its assault weapons ban, contending it violates the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

The lawsuit was the latest among gun advocacy and lobbying groups to challenge California's firearms laws, which are among the strictest in the country, and comes after a recent series of deadly mass shootings nationwide involving military-style rifles.

The lawsuit was filed in the same San Diego federal court district where a judge in April tossed out a nearly two-decade-old California ban on sales and purchases of ammunition magazines holding more than 10 bullets.

California Rifle & Pistol Association sued Thursday to block California from enforcing its assault weapons ban. Another plaintiff is San Diego County Gun Owners Political Action Committee

The new lawsuit says that decision by U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez undercuts California's ban on certain weapons defined as 'assault weapons' because they can use large-capacity magazines.

Benitez's decision triggered a week-long buying frenzy before he stopped sales while the state appeals his ruling.

In July, the California Rifle & Pistol Association - an affiliate of the National Rifle Association - asked the same judge to block a new law requiring background checks for anyone buying ammunition.

The National Rifle Association affiliate contends it violates Second Amendment right

The latest lawsuit could go before the same judge.

It was filed on behalf of three San Diego County men who own legal rifles or pistols and want to use high-capacity magazines in them but can't because doing so would turn them into illegal assault weapons under California statutes and they could be confiscated, the lawsuit argued.

Another plaintiff is the San Diego County Gun Owners Political Action Committee.

It names state Attorney General Xavier Becerra and the head of the state Department of Justice firearms bureau.

Becerra, who is defending the state's gun and ammunition laws, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit said the term assault weapon is 'a politically-concocted pejorative term' for weapons lawfully used 'in virtually every state' and argued that California is barring law-abiding citizens from getting, making or transferring 'firearms in common use for lawful purposes such as self-defense inside and outside the home, competition, sport, and hunting.'

Three San Diego County men own legal rifles or pistols and want to use high-capacity magazines (file image) in them but can't as they would be illegal assault weapons

It asks the court to declare California's definition of an assault weapon unconstitutional and issue an order permanently barring enforcement of laws barring them on grounds of their ammunition magazine capacity.

A 24-year-old gunman with an AR-15-style assault rifle killed nine people and injured 27 others in Dayton, Ohio this month.

An a gunman in the El Paso mass shooting the day before complained in a manifesto that the WASR 10 rifle, an AK-47 variant, that he used to kill 20 people, couldn't match the lethality of an AR-15.

Lawsuit says Judge Roger Benitez's April decision to toss out a nearly two-decade-old ban on sales and purchases of ammunition magazines holding more than 10 bullets, undercuts the assault weapons ban

Trump said recently in regards to an assault rifle ban: 'I can tell you that there is no political appetite for that at this moment.'

California is regarded as the strictest state in terms of gun control.

Some people pointed out that the Walter Lake, Nevada gun in Gilroy Garlic festival mass shooting on July 28 would not have been able to get the gun in California.

The 19-year-old purchased it in Fallon, Nevada.

The gunman used a semi-automatic variant of the AK-47, which appears to have a detachable magazine and wooden stock with a pistol grip.

'Under the configuration of that gun, it would be illegal for him to import it into the state,' Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California, previously said.

'That weapon could not be sold in California. That weapon cannot be imported into the state of California,' California Attorney General Xavier Becerra previously said. 'The reach of the California law ends at our borders, and so we cannot control what other states do, and that's what makes it so tough.'

Under a California law that went into effect January 1, residents younger than 21 are barred from buying rifles or shotguns unless they are in the military or law enforcement. You only have to be 18 to buy a rifle in Nevada.