A California appeals court ruled on Thursday that a state law requiring people to undergo background checks each time they purchase ammunition is unconstitutional.
In a 2-1 decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law “meaningfully constrains” Second Amendment rights, marking a blow to California’s gun control regulations, which are viewed as some of the toughest in the nation. Voters initially approved the measure via referendum in 2016.
“The right to keep and bear arms incorporates the right to operate them, which requires ammunition,” Circuit Judge Sandra Segal Ikuta wrote in a ruling joined by Judge Bridget Bade.
Judge Jay Bybee, the lone dissenter in Thursday’s decision, accused the majority of effectively declaring any limits on ammunition sales unlawful.
The law “is not the kind of heavy-handed regulation that meaningfully constrains the right to keep and bear arms,” Bybee wrote.
California Democrats, including Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), denounced the ruling, which came after seven years of legal back and forth through the courts challenging the law.
“Strong gun laws save lives — and today’s decision is a slap in the face to the progress California has made in recent years to keep its communities safer from gun violence,” Newsom said. “Californians voted to require background checks on ammunition, and their voices should matter.”
Critics of the law celebrated following their latest court victory.
“Today’s ruling is what plaintiffs … and many in the 2A community, like the National Rifle Association, who supported the many appeals in this case, have been waiting almost a decade to receive,” the California Pistol and Rifle Association said, describing the decision as a victory against “overreaching government gun control” and “a big win for all gun owners in California.”
The debate started in 2016, when California voters approved a ballot measure requiring 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. The ballot measure came a year after a 2015 mass shooting in which 14 people were killed during a holiday party in San Bernardino.
State lawmakers later changed the rules in 2019 to require background checks each time a gun owner makes an ammunition purchase.
A federal district court judge ruled in February 2024 that the law was unconstitutional, holding that it 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, who had criticized the state’s automated background check system, which the San Diego judge said rejected about 11%, or 58,087, of applicants in the first half of 2023.
California appealed Benitez’s injunction blocking the law, leading the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to overturn Benitez’s ruling the same month and keep the ammunition law in place.