(The Center Square) – California gun owners filed for an injunction against a new state law requiring gun dealers to maintain 24/7 camera and audio footage for one year, a move they say violates several constitutional rights by requiring extensive video and audio surveillance in gun shops, shows, and the homes of federal firearm licensees.
Under SB 1384, signed into law in 2022, firearms sellers in California must provide surveillance for “all areas where firearms are displayed,” including areas outside of where business inventory is displayed. This means personally owned firearms of FFL holders require additional cameras and audio recording. The law also requires surveillance for “all points of sale,” which means for home-based dealers — who tend to deal in specialty firearms and are often referred to as “kitchen table FFLs” — would need 24-hour surveillance of areas such as a FFL’s kitchen table. Home-based dealers must adhere to the same federal and state gun dealer requirements as commercial dealers, including following regulations of and allowing for inspections and audits by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
A similar bill was passed in Illinois in 2019, leading more than half of the state’s FFLs to not apply for certification under the new law.
The plaintiffs, which include FFLs and Second Amendment groups, argue the law infringes upon First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights, by chilling free speech, privacy, equal protection, and the right to bear arms.
“Distilled to its essence, Section 26806 creates a de facto registry of gun owners, complete with facial and vocal data cataloging every exercise of their Second Amendment right to acquire firearms,” wrote the plaintiff’s lawyers in the complaint.
The complaint claims these concerns are “not speculative” given that in 2023, the California Court of Appeals ruled the state can provide personal identifying information of California gun owners to “researchers” of “gun violence,” including what the complaint says is the state-funded California Firearm Violence Research Center at the University of California-Davis. According to a 2013 profile in Scientific American, the center’s founder is credited as having “worked with California lawmakers on crafting gun policy and helped to drive a group of gun-making companies out of business.”
Bill sponsor Brady United Against Gun Violence, however, says the rules are necessary to limit straw purchases and gun theft, claiming, “Illegal guns begin as legal firearms, initially sold by dealers and subsequently funneled into an illegal market, often through straw purchases where a person buys a firearm on behalf of another while falsely representing that it is for themselves. This legislation is critical to curbing dangerous sales, preventing guns from being diverted into the criminal market and reducing the likelihood of straw purchases, theft, burglary, and loss of inventory.”
On January 9, Judge James V. Selna agreed to grant defendants California governor Gavin Newsom and attorney general Rob Bonta 28 days to respond to the complaint. After Newsom and Bonta have responded, it’s likely a hearing will be held soon thereafter on whether or not the judge will issue a preliminary injunction as the case makes its way through trial.
