A California law requiring people to submit to a background check every time they want to purchase ammunition is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled in a decision made public Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez found state laws prohibiting California buyers from purchasing and importing ammunition from out-of-state sellers likewise violate federal law.
Benitez barred the state from enforcing the laws moving forward and denied a request from California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office to put his decision on hold while the state appeals to a higher court.
Benitez — who in recent years has issued a long line of rulings against California gun control measures — based his decision in part on the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn. vs. Bruen. That decision said gun laws that aren’t deeply rooted in American history, or analogous to some historical law, are generally unconstitutional.
“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,” Benitez wrote.
Benitez also criticized the state for trying to justify its modern ammunition restrictions under Bruen by citing 48 historical laws that restricted enslaved people and other racial minorities from possessing ammunition.
“These fifty laws identified by the Attorney General constitute a long, embarrassing, disgusting, insidious, reprehensible list of examples of government tyranny towards our own people,” Benitez wrote.
Attorneys for the state had not said they supported those racist laws — in fact, they disavowed them — but said they nonetheless provided a historical precedent for government restrictions on ammunition, as required under Bruen.
R&I~Smit
Scut FarKus