(The Center Square) – “Freedom Week” for California ammunition buyers ordering ammunition from out-of-state sellers ended on February 5 as federal judges in the 9th Circuit issued a stay on a lower court ruling that suspended the state’s requirement that ammunition buyers undergo a background check with every ammunition purchase and be barred from shipping ammunition from other states to their doors.
“California’s life-saving, common-sense, constitutional ammunition laws will remain in place as my office continues to defend them in court,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta in a statement.
Last week, federal district judge Roger Benitez issued an injunction against California’s bullet background checks and importation rules, claiming the state background check’s high system error rate of 11% — errors affecting 58,087 individuals — only led to blocking the purchases of 141 prohibited individuals and was thus an undue limitation on the Second Amendment. Benitez also ruled that the state’s prohibition of importing or carrying bullets from other states was in violation of federal law allowing the carrying of bullets on one’s person across state lines, and violated the federal commerce clause for placing a barrier to competition by other states’ bullet sellers.
“The ammunition background checks laws have no historical pedigree and operate in such a way that they violate the Second Amendment right of citizens to keep and bear arms,” wrote Benitez in his ruling . “The anti-importation components violate the dormant Commerce Clause and to the extent applicable to individuals travelling into California are preempted by [U.S. federal law]. Perhaps the simpler, 4-year and $50 ammunition purchase permit approved by the voters in Proposition 63, would have fared better.”
California voters adopted Proposition 63, which required background checks to purchase ammunition and banned possession of standard-capacity magazines holding more than 10 bullets, in 2016. California’s legislature amended Proposition 63 before its passage to change Proposition 63’s requirement that buyers apply for four-year, background-checked permits to purchase bullets to a new requirement for background checks with every purchase of ammunition.
The three judge panel of the 9th Circuit voted 2-1 to place a stay on the injunction. The one dissenting judge, U.S. Circuit Judge and Bush appointee Consuelo Callahan, opposed the stay and said Bonta had not “met his burden for showing a likelihood of success on the merits or the irreparable injury that will occur absent a stay.”
For nearly a week, California ammunition buyers were able to purchase ammunition without background checks, and order ammunition from out-of-state sellers right to their front doors instead of having to make purchases through California dealers or use a California dealer as an intermediary for out-of-state ammunition sales.
This so-called “Freedom Week” of 2024 closely mirrors that of 2019, when after another Benitez ruling Californians were able to purchase state-banned standard-capacity magazines for an entire week from online retailers in other states.
