California’s latest attack on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans came in the form of an attempt to limit purchases of firearms to one per month. The NRA is fighting back.
The NRA recently filed an amicus brief with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Nguyen v. Bonta, a challenge to California’s law prohibiting the purchase of more than one firearm within any 30-day period.
The brief argues that California’s law violates the Second Amendment because the right to keep and bear arms includes the right to acquire firearms—multiple gun purchases per month were common in early America and there were no historical limitations on the number of firearms that law-abiding citizens could purchase.
“The State failed to provide a single historical law limiting how many firearms someone could purchase in a month. Nor did the State provide any founding era regulation. Instead, the State relied primarily on colonial restrictions preventing the arming of hostile foreign nations and late-19th-century concealed carry licensing laws, restrictions for intoxicated persons, tax laws, and gunpowder export laws. None of them limited the number of firearms that law-abiding, responsible citizens could acquire,” reads the brief.
In 2019, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB 61, which limited California residents from purchasing more than one firearm from a licensed dealer in any 30-day period. It was set to go into effect in July 2021.
Earlier this year, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California held that California’s one-gun-per-month restriction is unconstitutional. The state then appealed that decision to the Ninth Circuit.
President Joe Biden (D), it should be noted, has also been a proponent of this one-gun-per-month policy, as has Vice President Kamala Harris (D).
