California Attorney General Rob Bonta

The battle over California’s law banning more than one firearm purchase in a 30-day period is heating up with state attorneys recently filing their opening brief in their appeal of the victory won in district court by the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC).

“We expected the State to continue to rely on the failed arguments that they have made since the case began in December of 2020. They did not disappoint,” FPC said in a press release announcing the filing. “California’s core argument is that limitations of firearm purchases do not implicate the plain text of the Second Amendment and that it’s limitation on purchases is not an ‘infringement’ of the right to keep and bear arms.”

“Going further, California argues in their appeal that the District Court’s analysis of the historical examples they used to defend the law was flawed and that the 9th Circuit must take an even more ‘nuanced’ approach in applying the Supreme Court’s NYSRPA v. Bruen decision.”

In the opening brief in Nguyen v. Bonta, the state wrote: “This sales limitation, which is typically referred to as the one-gun-a-month or OGM law, does not impose any ceiling on the total number of firearms that a resident may accumulate over time. California residents authorized to possess firearms may collect as many firearms as they would like subject to the one-gun-a-month regulation, which has limited the bulk purchases of handguns for over two decades.”

Thus, the brief states, there is no infringement on a Constitutional right.

“The challenged law therefore does not infringe the right to ‘keep’ or ‘bear’ ‘Arms’ and does not violate the Second Amendment. The text of the Second Amendment does not presumptively protect a right to purchase an unlimited number of firearms from a licensed dealer within a 30-day period.”

In the end, the brief petitioned the court: “The judgment of the district court should be reversed, and this Court should remand for entry of judgment in favor of the Attorney General.”

As the FPC has pointed out in the past, there is no constitutionally sound justification for this ban.

“The Second Amendment protects ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms’—plural—which right ‘shall not be infringed,’” FPC said.

FPC also stresses that there is no historic precedent to be pointed out by the state. In fact, only five states have ever imposed gun bans like the law being challenged in California, and none did so before 1975.

FPC’s answering brief in the lawsuit is due in late May.

12 COMMENTS

  1. Thus, the brief states, there is no infringement on a Constitutional right.

    So, a one gun per month limit is not an infringement? I think California AG Rob Bonta needs a dictionary.

    • Ragnar,

      I think that Leftist idiot needs a brain more than he needs a dictionary (which he is probably incapable of using, anyway).

  2. Gun Control zealots get their jollies “doing things” to people like pedophiles get their jollies doing things to children or nazis got their jollies doing things to Jews, etc.

  3. Restricting a person to saying one thing a day is constitutional, or restricting a person to one tweet a day is constitutional, or restricting a person to fifteen minutes a day with their lawyer is constitutional.

    Man, that sounds absurd if I say it like that.

  4. They will not let you wear any underwear in this county jail unless they are White briefs.
    Naturally I had on camo boxers, so there I was free falling and the orange jumps suits ain’t got no zippers.
    Shoot outs👍

  5. The one inescapable fact that the State cannot escape is that its regulations is only 20 years old, and prior to 1975 (per the article) there were no restrictions at all as to the number of arms anyone could buy at any time. Purchases of multiple firearms is how militias were armed int he early 19th Century, and that continued to be the case through the unCivil War. Hell, there weren’t any FFLS back then either, no background checks except for machine guns beginning in the 1930s, and no limit on the number of machine guns one could buy until they became hideously expensive. Finally, 12 firearms a year is a rather slow way to build a collection.

    • The peaceful civil war. All working Americans call in sick for 3 days, no one buys anything, no one uses anything involved that’s taxed.
      Use no utilities, no tele, no internet, no amusement park rides.
      War is hell.

  6. “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment right is not unlimited…. [It is] not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”
    – – Assoc Justice A. Scalia

    Califhorny, like other states, is only setting the “common sense” boundaries, and eliminating the idea of “…any weapon whatsoever, in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” Indeed, Californication is establishing the limits of “whatsoever…”

    The implication of Scalia’s declaration is the “text, history, and tradition” are not considerations of the validity of firearm laws. Stare Decisis…as of Scalia’s dictate; “text, history and tradtion” are not precedent, but the words of Scalia are.

    Go back to your social media, folks; nothing to see here.

  7. The Democrats continually want to redefine what WORDS mean. The Country needs to REFORM the courts too.

    • REFORM, of course….we need to re-form these Democrat politicians into soap dropping prisoner’s in a federal prison.

  8. “California residents authorized to possess firearms…”

    Not “legally eligible” or “residents who are not legally prohibited,” but residents who are “authorized.”

    Revealing word choice, intentional or not.

Comments are closed.