Summary
The Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for plaintiffs, holding that California’s one-gun-a-month law facially violates the Second Amendment. The court concluded that the Second Amendment protects possession of multiple firearms and protects against meaningful constraints on acquiring firearms through purchase. It further held that California’s law was not supported by a comparable historical tradition of firearm regulation.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether California's one-gun-a-month law facially violates the Second Amendment.
- Whether the Second Amendment's plain text protects possession of multiple firearms and protects against meaningful constraints on acquiring firearms through purchase.
- Whether historical laws establish a sufficiently comparable tradition of firearm regulation to sustain California's 30-day purchase limit under New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
Holdings
- The Second Amendment's plain text protects the right to possess multiple firearms.
- The Second Amendment protects against meaningful constraints on the right to acquire firearms through purchase, including meaningful constraints on acquiring multiple firearms.
- California's one-gun-a-month law is facially unconstitutional because the historical record does not establish a relevantly similar tradition of restricting nearly all law-abiding citizens from purchasing more than one firearm in a 30-day period.
Key quotations
“California’s law is facially unconstitutional because possession of multiple firearms and the ability to acquire firearms through purchase without meaningful constraints are protected by the Second Amendment and California’s law is not supported by our nation’s tradition of firearms regulation.” (at 1237)
“The Second Amendment expressly protects the right to possess multiple arms. It also protects against meaningful constraints on the right to acquire arms because otherwise the right to “keep and bear” would be hollow.” (at 1253)
“And while Bruen does not require a “historical twin” for a modern firearm regulation to pass muster, here the historical record does not even establish a historical cousin for California’s one-gun-a-month law.” (at 1253)
Factual background
California's one-gun-a-month law, enacted in 1999 and expanded over time, generally prohibits a person from applying to purchase more than one firearm within a 30-day period. The law was enacted to combat straw transactions and illegal firearm markets and currently applies broadly to firearms, subject to specified exemptions. Plaintiffs included individuals seeking to purchase multiple firearms, organizations whose members wanted to do so, and firearm retailers and owners seeking to conduct such transactions.
Procedural history
Plaintiffs brought a facial Second Amendment challenge to California Penal Code section 27535 and related provisions. The district court granted plaintiffs summary judgment and enjoined enforcement of the law. California appealed, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed; the panel had previously reversed a motions-panel stay of the district court's injunction after oral argument.