Today, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that California’s law prohibiting people from buying more than one firearm in a 30-day period violates the Second Amendment.
California enacted its one-gun-a-month law in 1999, at which point it applied only to concealable firearms. By 2024, it applied to all firearms. Several plaintiffs—including six individuals, PWGG, LP, North County Shooting Center, Firearms Policy Coalition, San Diego County Gun Owners Political Action Committee, and Second Amendment Foundation—challenged the law in the Southern District of California. After the district court held the law unconstitutional, the state appealed to the Ninth Circuit.
The Ninth Circuit held the one-gun-a-month law facially unconstitutional under the text-and-history test set forth in the NRA’s landmark 2022 victory, NYSRPA v. Bruen. Starting with the Second Amendment’s text, the court recognized that the Amendment “expressly protects the right to possess multiple arms” by using the word “Arms.” Next considering the historical tradition of firearm regulation, the court concluded that while Bruen “does not require a ‘historical twin’ for a modern firearm regulation to pass muster,” California failed even to provide “a historical cousin for California’s one-gun-a-month law.”
The opinion can be read here. And the amicus brief the NRA filed in the case can be read here.
Please stay tuned to www.nraila.org for future updates on NRA-ILA’s ongoing efforts to defend your constitutional rights, and please visit www.nraila.org/litigation to keep up to date on NRA-ILA’s ongoing litigation efforts.
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