The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that the policy of verifying the history of California for bullet buyers violates the 2nd amendment, actually killing a voting measure of 2016 intended to strengthen the laws on the notoriously strict state weapons.
Writing for two of the three judges of the appeal committee, judge Sandra Segal Ikuta said that the law “significantly constrained the right to keep the operable weapons” guaranteed by the Constitution, by forcing the owners of firearms California to reautorize before each purchase of ammunition.
“The right to keep and carry weapons incorporating the right to exploit them, which requires ammunition,” wrote the judge.
The decision is the last blow of efforts on a state level to regulate firearms.
The 9th circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States have considerably restricted firearms control measures over the past decade only. Two of the three cases of control that Ikuta cited in its decision has been rendered in the past three years.
Thursday’s decision mainly drew from a Supreme Court decision in 2022 which has strongly limited the control measures of firearms adopted by individual states, noting that these laws must be “in accordance with the historical tradition of the country’s firearms”.
California had tried to bypass this test in part by showing loyalty oaths in the era of reconstruction that some Americans had to make before buying firearms.
But that did not influence the panel.
“The problem of ensuring that citizens are faithful to the United States by demanding a single loyalty oath is not similar to the rules for verifying the history of recurring ammunition of California,” wrote Ikuta. “These laws are not relevant.”
Judge Jay Bybee did not agree.
“California, which has administered the program since 2019, has shown that the vast majority of its checks cost a dollar and impose less than a minute late,” the judge wrote in his dissent. “The majority broke with our previous one and flouted the directives of the Supreme Court.”
California Data Department of Justice Bureau of Firearms show that the program approved 89% of purchases, most of them in about three minutes. He rejected a little more than 10% on the technical details that were resolved later, and less than 1% because the buyer was prohibited.
Although the 2022 affair “inaugurated a new era for the jurisprudence of the second amendment,” wrote Bybee, this did not prevent the ball of the ball control program.
“We have repeatedly rejected the unlimited interpretation of the majority of the second amendment,” wrote Bybee. “It is difficult to imagine a regulation on the acquisition of ammunition or firearms which would not” limit “the right to keep and bear arms under the new general applicability standard of the majority.”
It was not immediately clear if the decision raises restrictions in place in the past six years. California leaders have not yet declared if they would appeal the decision.
Armed violence prevention organizations have decried the decision, saying that it made Californians less safe.
“In 2024 only, this law allowed [the California Department of Justice] To investigate 191 armed and prohibited people who tried to buy ammunition, “said Janet Carter, Director General of Disputes for the 2nd Amendment to EveryTown Law.
Fire arms rights activists have been delighted by the news.
“Today’s decision is a major step for the 2nd amendment and the rights of each law that respects the laws,” said Dan Wolgin, Director General of Ammotion Depot, one of the complainants of the case.
