First, the big news is that a three-judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled 2-1 in Rhode v. Bonta that California’s ammunition background check system is unconstitutional.
This is a pivotal moment in a case—long backed by the NRA and its affiliate the California Rifle & Pistol Association—that has been ongoing for almost a decade. That said, the case is still ongoing. As this was being written, California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) was expected to request an en banc (or full court) review of Rhode v. Bonta. The Ninth Circuit has a history of staying and reversing similar Second Amendment-related rulings via en banc reviews.
In either case, the losing party could ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. It’s anyone’s guess if the high court would take such an appeal. Since Heller (2008), the Supreme Court has taken some major gun cases, but it has turned down many more.
Now to the important details of Rhode v. Bonta, as the majority opinion and the dissent in this case clearly show why this is of such national importance.
In finding that California’s ammunition background check system “violates the Second Amendment,” the panel applied the two-step framework established in the NRA-backed case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022). In the first step, a court must decide if the case in question directly involves the text of the Second Amendment. The majority opinion found that it does. They held that “California’s ammunition background check regime implicates the plain text of the Second Amendment because the regime meaningfully constrains the right to keep operable arms.”
The second part of the framework is a historical test. The panel held that California failed to show that the state’s ammunition background check regime “is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
To show this, the majority opinion from Judges Sandra S. Ikuta and Bridget S. Bade went to great lengths to demonstrate what the state’s gun owners actually have to do in order to buy ammunition. In the majority opinion, the judges exposed a purposely created gauntlet of taxes, waiting periods, fees, bureaucratic ineptitude and related problems, all of which constitute an infringement of citizens’ Second Amendment-protected rights.
“We have also recognized that the right to keep and bear arms ‘wouldn’t mean much without the ability to acquire arms,’” said the majority opinion. Indeed, as ammunition is necessary to the operation of a firearm, this majority opinion notes that “California does not dispute that the right to keep ammunition is entitled to protection under the Second Amendment.”
The majority opinion then states that laws that “impose ‘conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms’ are presumptively unconstitutional if they ‘meaningfully constrain’ the right to keep and bear arms.”
The opinion next outlines all the requirements, steps and fees citizens who reside in California must undergo just to get a box of .22 Long Rifle to plink with. This gauntlet is too long and legally cumbersome to fit here, but here is a taste: “Though not all the rules comprising California’s ammunition background check regime impose delays on their face, they do not require California to approve checks within a certain time frame. Requirements prior to various types of background checks, such as fingerprinting, inherently cause some amount of delay. After approval, moreover, a California resident may be required to purchase ammunition during a specified period of time—e.g., 18 hours—after passing a background check. The regime applies to all types of ammunition and California residents cannot avoid the background check requirements by taking advantage of internet or out-of-state sales.”
Then come the fees, bureaucratic requirements and much more. Anyone interested in understanding the full burden of this complex law should read this majority opinion.
And then there is the dissent in this case, which shows that the gun-control Left wants to simply dismiss all the evidence to get their way.
In his dissent, Judge Jay S. Bybee argues that because “California’s face-to-face requirement regulates even-handedly to effectuate a legitimate local public interest, and its effects on interstate commerce are only incidental,” it passes the two-part constitutional test from Bruen. Judge Bybee even argues that the majority opinion in this case “flouted the Supreme Court’s guidance” in Bruen.
According to this judge, this California law does not meaningfully “impede” ammunition “access.” He even writes that the “majority cannot, and does not, seriously dispute this,” even though the two other judges went through great pains to show how burdensome this gauntlet of fees, waiting periods and more is.
This court fight, which shows how critical NRA membership and dues are, is far from over, so stay tuned.
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