The battle for 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.
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