In layman’s terms: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit says California’s ammo background checks are unconstitutional.
Every now and again, even rogue Circuit Courts are forced to admit what is both common sense and lawful, as the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded today in a ruling overturning California’s unconstitutional restrictions on ammunition sales.
In the multi-year case of Rhode v. Bonta, on appeal from the US District Court for the Southern District of California, Judges Bybee, Ikuta, and Bade issued a 79-page decision finding that, “…California’s ammunition background check regime violates the Second Amendment,” with Judge Bybee dissenting.
The suit challenged Proposition 63, a 2016 voter-approved measure that created a background check regime for ammunition sales that went into effect July 1, 2019. The lawsuit was brought by Kim Rhode with the support of the California Rifle and Pistol Association.
As we reported, on January 30, 2024, United States District Judge Roger T. Benitez struck down the unconstitutional law with a permanent injunction, which the state appealed and moved to stay the district court’s permanent injunction and judgment. A motions panel granted that motion.
Encouragingly, the 9th Circuit began its analysis with both the text of the Second Amendment and reference to the monumental 2022 Bruen decision, which forever changed the landscape of how Second Amendment cases were measured with regard to challenging unconstitutional laws.
The court also emphasized how the Bruen test is to work, admonishing, “We reject the dissent’s contention that an analysis of Bruen’s footnote regarding shall-issue licensing regimes must precede the application of Bruen’s two-step framework.”
The majority ultimately concluded:
By subjecting Californians to background checks for all ammunition purchases, California’s ammunition background check regime infringes on the fundamental right to keep and bear arms. Because California’s ammunition background check regime violates the Second Amendment, the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting a permanent injunction.
It’s significant that elements of the court are facially OK with infringements, even “small” ones, as Judge Bybee notes in her dissent:
California, which has administered the scheme since 2019, has shown that the vast majority of its checks cost one dollar and impose less than one minute of delay.
The majority concludes that such infringements are akin to “permanent disarmament”:
Neither the “how” nor “why” of these historical regulations is relevantly similar to California’s ammunition background check regime. The “why” of these historical regulations is to address the problem of disaffected persons having access to arms that could be used against the colonies. The “how” of addressing this problem is permanent disarmament.
California’s late-19th and early-20th century laws requiring recordkeeping from firearm sellers do not, of course, align with the 1791-era requirement for historical analogues, nor did they apply to ammunition sales.
The state is likely to challenge the result of this ruling, which could see an en banc review.
