The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday that the California background verification policy for bullet buyers violates the second amendment, effectively killing a 2016 voting measure aimed at strengthening the laws of notoriously strict weapons of the State.
When writing for two of the three judges in the Appeals Panel, Judge Sandra Segal Ikuta said that the law “significantly limits the right to maintaining the operable weapons” guaranteed by the Constitution, forcing California weapons owners to reappropriate before each purchase of ammunition.
“The right to maintain and Bear Arms incorporates the right to operate them, which requires ammunition,” the judge wrote.
The ruling is the last blow for efforts throughout the state to regulate weapons.
Both the 9th circuit and the United States Supreme Court have significantly restricted the weapons control measures in the last decade. Two of the three controlling cases cited Ikuta in their decision were transmitted in the last three years.
Thursday's ruling was mainly based on a decision of the 2022 Supreme Court that strongly limited the weapons control measures approved by individual states, finding that such laws must be “consistent with the historical tradition of the regulation of firearms.”
California had tried to avoid that test in part by pointing out the oaths of loyalty of the era of reconstruction that some Americans should do before buying weapons.
But that did not influence the panel.
“The problem of ensuring that citizens are loyal to the United States by requiring a unique loyalty oath is not analogous to the background verification rules of ammunition ammunition in California,” Ikuta wrote. “These laws are not relevant.”
Judge Jay Bybee did not agree.
“California, who has administered the scheme since 2019, has shown that the vast majority of their checks cost a dollar and impose less than a minute of delay,” the judge wrote in his dissent. “Most have broken with our precedent and has breached the guide of the Supreme Court.”
The data of the Office of Firearms of the Department of Justice of California show that the program approved 89% of purchases, mostly in approximately three minutes. He rejected a little more than 10% in technicalities that were later resolved, and less than 1% because the buyer was prohibited.
Although the case of 2022 had “marked the beginning of a new era for the jurisprudence of the second amendment,” Bybee wrote, did not prevent the Bullet-background verification scheme.
“We have repeatedly rejected the unlimited interpretation of most of the second amendment,” Bybee wrote. “It is difficult to imagine a regulation on the acquisition of ammunition or firearms that would not” limit “the right to maintain and bring weapons under the new general applicability standard of the majority.”
It was not clear immediately if the ruling would raise the restrictions in place during the last six years. California leaders have not yet said if they would appeal the decision.
The armed violence prevention organizations denounced the ruling, saying that the Californians were less safe.
“Only in 2024, this law enabled [the California Department of Justice] To investigate 191 armed and prohibited people who tried to buy ammunition, ”said Janet Carter, managing director of Litigios of the second amendment at Everything Law.
Weapon rights activists were delighted with the news.
“Today's ruling is a great step forward for the second amendment and the rights of each citizen respectful of the law,” said Dan Wolgin, executive director of Munition Depot, one of the plaintiffs in the case.
