Cali proposed TRO re: ammo sales

[Norm DeGuerre]

120 pages
good reading
fresh offn the Press as usual

crap, it's just a bit too big
by PM you will get this

[WARFAB]

Sounds like the 9th circuit is up to its usual shenanigans.

[thughes]

short attention span version

[Norm DeGuerre]

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

KIM RHODE, et al.,

Plaintiffs,

v.
XAVIER BECERRA, in his official
capacity as Attorney General of the State
of California,

Defendant.

Case No.: 18-cv-802-BEN

ORDER GRANTING
PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR
PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION

The experiment has been tried. The casualties have been counted.
California’s new ammunition background check law misfires and the Second
Amendment rights of California citizens have been gravely injured. In this action,
Plaintiffs seek a preliminary injunction enjoining California’s onerous and
convoluted new laws requiring ammunition purchase background checks and
implementing ammunition anti-importation laws. For the reasons that follow, the
motion for preliminary injunction is granted.
Case 3:18-cv-00802-BEN-JLB Document 60 Filed 04/23/20 PageID.2191 Page 1 of 120

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28

2

The purported state interest to be achieved by these new laws is keeping
ammunition out of the hands of prohibited Californians. These new laws are
constitutionally defective for several reasons. First, criminals, tyrants, and
terrorists don’t do background checks. The background check experiment defies
common sense while unduly and severely burdening the Second Amendment rights
of every responsible, gun-owning citizen desiring to lawfully buy ammunition.
Second, the implementing regulations systematically prohibit or deter an untold
number of law-abiding California citizen-residents from undergoing the required
background checks. Third, in the seven months since implementation, the standard
background check rejected citizen-residents who are not prohibited persons
approximately 16.4 % of the time. Fourth, the ammunition anti-importation laws
directly violate the federal dormant Commerce Clause.
I. BACKGROUND

For the last 170 years, California citizens were able to purchase wanted or
needed ammunition without background checks. They could order ammunition
over the internet and from vendors outside the state. Today, the first state in the
nation to do so, California extends the idea of firearm background checks to
Case 3:18-cv-00802-BEN-JLB Document 60 Filed 04/23/20 PageID.2192 Page 2 of 120

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28

3

ammunition purchasers.1 2

In other words, every time a person wants to buy
ammunition legally, a licensed ammunition dealer must first conduct a California
Department of Justice background check in a face-to-face transaction. No doubt, to
prevent gun crime by preventing felons and other prohibited persons from acquiring
ammunition is a laudable goal.

3 But there is little evidence that pre-purchase

1
“Ammunition control is the next frontier in U.S. gun control policy.” Brendan J.
Healey, Plugging the Bullet Holes in U.S. Gun Law: An Ammunition-Based
Proposal for Tightening Gun Control, 32 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1 (1998).
2 New York was the first state to enact a comprehensive ammunition background
check system, but the system has yet to be implemented. James B. Jacobs and Zoe
A. Fuhr, Universal Background Checking – New York’s SAFE Act, 79 Albany L.
Rev. 1327, 1345 (2016). Unlike California’s goal of stopping prohibited persons
from buying ammunition, New York’s law was intended to identify mass shooters.
The Governor of New York argued that ammunition background checking would
enable police to monitor high-volume ammunition transactions to prevent mass
killings. Id. at 1345-46. However, constructing the New York system proved
unworkable. In 2015, the Governor suspended efforts to implement the background
check provisions. Id. at 1350. The requirement that ammunition purchases be
conducted in a face-to-face transaction is the only part of New York’s SAFE Act
currently in force. Id. at 1352. Not surprisingly, “the law is pushing out-of-state
[ammunition vendor] competitors from the New York market,” just like the
California law has pushed out-of-state vendors from the California market.
3 While the goal is laudable, choking off ammunition as a means to that end is
constitutionally offensive. The notion of reducing gun crime by controlling
ammunition purchases can be traced back to at least 1993. That year, United States
Senator Daniel P. Moynihan introduced a series of bills to strictly regulate the sale
of handgun ammunition. Scott D. Dailard, The Role of Ammunition in a Balanced
Case 3:18-cv-00802-BEN-JLB Document 60 Filed 04/23/20 PageID.2193 Page 3 of 120

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28

4

ammunition background checking will accomplish the goal and the burden it places
on the Constitutional rights of law-abiding firearm owners is profound.
Furthermore, compared to the discouraging effect on criminals, the laws have a
severely disproportionate effect on law-abiding citizen-residents. As one
commentator put it, “in the end, the [Safety for All] Act will have a much more
profound effect on law-abiding citizens than it will on criminals or the mentally ill.
While an average Californian would not risk breaking the law to purchase illegal
ammunition, criminals and mentally ill individuals planning mass-shootings would
be much more likely to do so.” Forrest Brown, The Wild West: Application of the
Second Amendment’s Individual Right to California Firearm Legislation, 92 S. Cal.
L. Rev. 1203, 1231 (2019).

Program of Gun Control: A Critique of Moynihan Bullet Bills, 20 J. Legis. 19
(1994). Moynihan contended that society is so saturated with guns that gun crime
would continue even if all firearm sales were halted, so instead he imagined a nation
of empty guns.
The Senator’s solution was the constitutionally offensive means of depleting
stores of ammunition through government regulation. “[C]ommerce in ammunition
is readily amenable to legislative controls – bullets can be banned or taxed into
obsolescence.” Id. at 22. Because he estimated there exists only a four-year
supply of ammunition in factory, commercial, or household inventories, Moynihan
envisioned “the regulatory end in view [would be] a nation of empty guns . . . .” Id.

[WARFAB]

Apparently Moynihan doesn't/didn't know anything about reloading ammunition at home.

Speaking of reloading, I'm hearing that the market for used reloading equipment is pretty hot these days.