A U.S. federal district court judge ruled Wednesday that California cannot enforce a law requiring people to undergo background checks to purchase ammunition, holding that the law has “no historical pedigree” and violates the Second Amendment.
“A sweeping background check requirement imposed every time a citizen needs to buy ammunition is an outlier that our ancestors would have never accepted for a citizen,” wrote U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, an appointee of former President George W. Bush.
Benitez, who, in recent years, has ruled against California’s gun control measures, based his decision in part on the 2022 Supreme Court decision known as New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which held that gun laws that are not rooted in the nation’s history and tradition of firearms laws, or are not analogous to a historic law, are typically not constitutional.
In a condemnation of California’s required background check for ammunition purchases, Benitez cited 48 historical laws dating back to 1789 that barred enslaved people and other racial minorities from owning ammunition.
“These fifty laws identified by the Attorney General constitute a long, embarrassing, disgusting, insidious, reprehensible list of examples of government tyranny towards our own people,” Benitez wrote in a 32-page decision.
Lawyers for the state said they did not support the context behind the older laws but that they nonetheless serve as “historical analogs” for the government to place restrictions on ammunition sales, arguing their citations should comply with Bruen.
Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement his office would appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, seeking a temporary ruling that would halt Benitez’s decision from taking effect while litigation continues.
“These laws were put in place as a safeguard and a way of protecting the people of California — and they work,” Bonta said. “We will continue to fight for our authority to keep Californians safe,” the attorney general added, noting that the Supreme Court “was clear that Bruen did not create a regulatory straitjacket for states.”
In 2016, California voters approved a ballot measure that required gun owners to undergo an initial background check to purchase ammunition and to pay $50 for a four-year permit that allowed them to buy ammunition subsequently. But lawmakers later changed the rules in 2019 to require background checks each time a gun owner makes an ammunition purchase.
Although Benitez did not outright endorse the four-year ammunition permit, he said it would be a “more reasonable constitutional approach than the current scheme.”
“Why the legislature eliminated the voter-approved 4-year permit system in favor of an every-purchase background check scheme is not apparent,” he wrote. “Without prejudging the discarded 4-year permit system envisioned by the voters of California, such a system would clearly be a more reasonable constitutional approach than the current scheme.”
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Beyond his Second Amendment concerns, Benitez also said the Golden State’s restrictions on sales from out-of-state ammunition dealers clash with the federal government’s role in regulating interstate commerce. Citing the commerce clause, the judge said states typically cannot regulate or restrict the flow of legal goods from other states.
The ruling against California’s ammunition background checks goes into effect immediately and can only be stayed by the 9th Circuit.