BELLEVUE, WA – California’s mandatory background check requirement for ammunition purchases, which falsely rejects more than 10 percent of qualified buyers, is unconstitutional, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms says in an amicus brief submitted to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The case known as Rhode v. Bonta.
CCRKBA is joined by the Second Amendment Foundation and the Second Amendment Law Center. They are represented by SAF attorney Konstadinos T. Moros.
“As we note in the brief,” said CCRKBA Managing Director Andrew Gottlieb, “California started this ammunition background check in 2019, and there is no basis for it in historical tradition. The state even acknowledged in its district court declarations more than one-in-ten Golden State residents are erroneously rejected, and there has been no valid explanation for this. On top of that, the system rejects all non-residents who want to purchase ammunition in California, which translates to a meaningful restraint on the Second Amendment.
“California has adopted some of the most extreme gun control laws in the nation,” he added, “which, taken on their own, might not seem like a burden. However, when those laws are taken in totality—including the ammunition background check law—California’s entire gun control regime burdens the Second Amendment, which was incorporated to all the states via the 14th Amendment by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in McDonald v. City of Chicago.”
The brief pointedly makes reference to the Ninth Circuit’s history of vacating nearly all Second Amendment panel victories with an en banc rehearing.
“We realize the Ninth Circuit is not friendly to the Second Amendment,” Gottlieb acknowledged, “but this case challenges a law which is so egregious in its nature that it cannot be ignored. The Second Amendment is not a second-class right, yet the California legislature routinely treats it differently than any other right. That’s got to cease, and the Rhode challenge of this ammunition background check requirement may very well end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.”