UPDATED: The Second Amendment Foundation is reporting the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday issued a mandate finalizing the June ruling which found California’s long-standing one-gun-per-month law violates the Second Amendment.
This is a crushing blow to the Pacific Coast gun prohibition movement. Not only were Golden State anti-gunners slammed by the unanimous ruling in June by a three-judge circuit court panel, anti-gunners in Oregon and Washington also suffered a setback. Their agendas had been drifting toward extremist measures, reflecting essentially what has been the law in California. Now any movement in that direction is essentially off the table.
“Today’s mandate issued by the Ninth Circuit marks the first time the court has issued a final decision striking down a law for infringing on the Second Amendment,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut, in a statement released to the media. “Between Heller and Bruen, every case heard by a panel which concluded the law was contrary to the Second Amendment was reheard en banc by the court and ultimately upheld. This is a historic victory for Second Amendment rights in the Ninth Circuit and marks a measurable defeat for Governor Newsom and the legislature’s attempts to curtail the exercise of the right to keep and bear arms in California.”
Likewise, SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb was equally jubilant.
“Today’s mandate from the Ninth Circuit is a testament to SAF’s efforts to restore the Second Amendment rights of all Americans,” Gottlieb said. “This win is a huge step forward in one of the most gun-restrictive states in America, and we will not rest until Californians can exercise their full constitutional rights.”
For the past several years, Democrat-controlled legislatures in Washington and Oregon—following agendas set down by billionaire-backed gun prohibition lobbying groups such as the Seattle-based Alliance for Gun Responsibility—have been pushing both states toward increasingly restrictive gun control.
The case around which this news revolvers is Nguyen v. Bonta. California residents have suffered under the one-gun-per-month law for a quarter-century. The law, passed in 1999, was originally focused on “concealable handguns.” But over the years, as explained in the Ninth Circuit ruling, “the one-gun-a-month restriction was extended to more firearms…And by 2024, it applied to all firearms.”
The state could still appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, but for now, the Ninth Circuit, which is the largest of all the appeals court circuits, is bound by the June ruling. Other circuits will be paying attention.
In its 24-page ruling, the appeals court panel essentially defined the major problem with California’s approach to the Second Amendment.
“California suggests that the Second Amendment only guarantees a right to possess a single firearm, and that Plaintiffs’ rights have not been infringed because they already possess at least one firearm,” the opinion notes. “California is wrong. The Second Amendment protects the right of the people to ‘keep and bear Arms,’ plural. This “guarantee[s] the individual right to possess and carry weapons.” And not only is ‘Arms’ stated in the plural, but this term refers to more than just guns. It includes other weapons and instruments used for defense. See id. at 581. California’s interpretation would mean that the Second Amendment only protects possession of a single weapon of any kind. There is no basis for interpreting the constitutional text in that way.”
