A unanimous panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has struck down California’s “1-in-30” gun rationing law as unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. The law restricted citizens to one gun purchase every 30 days and was based on a ridiculous rationale that was shredded by the three-judge panel.
California Penal Code § 27535(a) states that individuals may not apply “to purchase more than one firearm within any 30-day period,” and § 27540(f) prohibits a firearms dealer from delivering any firearm if the dealer is notified that “the purchaser has made another application to purchase a handgun, semiautomatic centerfire rifle, completed frame or receiver, or firearm precursor part” within the preceding 30-day period.
Writing for the court, Judge Danielle Jo Forrest found the California law facially unconstitutional. She wrote:
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. California is wrong. The Second Amendment protects the right of the people to “keep and bear Arms,” plural. U.S. Const. amend. II (emphasis added). This “guarantee[s] the individual right to possess and carry weapons.” Heller, 554 U.S. at 592 (emphasis added). 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.
The court rightfully dismisses the state’s forced and frankly frivolous argument. It then delivers a particularly lethal line on the historical prong of the analysis.
Next, the panel held that California’s law is not supported by this nation’s tradition of firearms regulation. Bruen requires a “historical analogue,” not a“historical twin,” for a modern firearm regulation to pass muster. Here, the historical record does not even establish a historical cousin for California’s one-gun-a-month law.
BS like this is why the Democrat party is in a turd-swirl. All they do is sit around and come up with ways to violate rights and make people suffer – Second Amendment violations, social media censorship, killer vaccine mandates, indoctrinating children, poisoned food, facilitating illegal immigration, raising taxes, stealing elections, porn in school libraries, killing chickens, DEI discrimination, blocking traffic, instigating riots, “Pride” crapola, etc.
The passage of the opinion quoted above does not actually explain why the once a month provision is unconstitutional, since it doesn’t restrict ownership to one gun, but twelve per year. This passage has a better explanation:
But with California’s one-gun-a-month law, delay itself is the purpose. By categorically prohibiting citizens from purchasing more than one firearm of any kind in a 30-day period, California is infringing on citizens’ exercise of their Second Amendment rights. See Infringement, Black’s Law Dictionary (12th ed. 2024) (“An encroachment or trespass on (a right, privilege, etc.).”).
We are not aware of any circumstance where government may temporally meter the exercise of constitutional rights in this manner. And we doubt anyone would think government could limit citizens’ free-speech right to one protest a month, their free-exercise right to one worship service per month, or their right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures to apply only to one search or arrest per month. We could go on. If the frequency with which constitutional rights can be exercised could be regulated in this manner without infringement, what would limit government from deciding that a right need only be available every six months or once a year or at any other interval it chooses? California had no answer to this concern at oral argument.
OLD
You nailed it, if 30 days is OK. Whats next? 60 days, 90 days… One year.
Who knows when it comes to libs.
OldManFromKS,
That is a great passage. Thank you for posting it.
Sure, OMFK, so restriction of criminal conduct is the answer. Same with freedom of assembly, if the assembly is violent then it is not peaceful. The assembled whether it be churches, press, political assemblies, and all others are to self govern for peaceful and not rely upon LEO to keep them peaceful. This is done through an understanding within the people that the assembly shall be peaceful and self reflection as an assembly. The assembly self governs when saying these are the precautions needed as to where, when, how, why the assembly is done. We NEED the NG. We need LEO and not defend the the police or ICE. Mr. Padilla needs to understand this as he bum-rushed a press conference because he was doing press oversight?
I think that’s a run-on paragraph. OMFK , it’s self governing that’s at stake.
^^^ correction — defund the police …
Life is short you good people. It passes swiftly and so much to read, so little time.
Personal note I’ll lay on you, there are people who are so incredibly , amazingly intelligent that I’m certain time passes at a different rate.
Calling attention to Michel Foucault , French philosopher and his work because it’s an influence today in understanding populations and management of populations that is loosely described as politics.
The idea of sovereign and the population is well worth considering as the power and systems used are within nations. Consider the power of the ayotollah Khomeini for a moment and the population of Iran. My only conclusion is set the population free.
Thanks, you’re a smart bunch.
Old Man, it does restrict ownership to one gun. If I just bought my first gun, then for a month this law would have restricted me from purchasing another. California justified that by pretending that the 2nd amendment only guarantees one weapon, so any subsequent weapons are subject to the state’s wishes. The panel treated that argument with the contempt it deserves.
California is doing everything possible to make ownership of firearms burdensome. Transporting a gun with ammunition – ammo is supposed to be in a safe or something. It is just a matter of time until they have gun sniffing dogs. All of this effort is directed at Normies, not criminals.
California hates straights, hates men, hates guns, hates cars, hates gasoline, and most of all hates us Normies.
They truly love criminals and illegals – AKA: “Super Citizens”.
“It is just a matter of time until they have gun sniffing dogs”
Dogs that have been trained to sniff out nitrates used in explosives (including, I believe, smokeless powder) already exist. Transportation of firearms in New Jersey is even worse than your description of Kalifornia. Unless the firearms owner has a concealed carry permit, which the state has done everything in its power to discourage, any firearm must be unloaded, and in a secured container that is inaccessible from the driver’s seat. Except when engaged in licensed hunting, or in exercising the aforementioned CC permit, the only firearms transportation that is permitted at all is to and from a firing range, to and from a gunsmith, or to and from a licensed gun dealer at time of purchase. The travel route must be direct from point to point, with some limited (and deliberately ambiguous) exceptions allowed: refueling a vehicle and taking a pee stop have been successfully defended in court; other justifications remain vague.
Clarification on NJ transport regs: no ammo may be in the secured container with the firearm, it must be transported separately.
Amish Warrior,
My grandpa Brown always used to say that locks were to keep out honest people.
Laws are really meant to regulate honest folks — criminals simply see laws as a speed bump.
Maybe the 9th is made up of Democrat leaning but have come to the conclusion (as many) that there is no longer a democrat party?
When Normies win in the 9th Circus, it is truly unusual.
It really bespeaks the quality of a law degree these days when so many legislators (many of whom are also lawyers) pass laws that will never pass constitutional muster. I do believe that the core of our national decay can be traced directly back to the infestation of our media/education industries who continue to debase the quality of a BA, MA, of PhD by handing them out like candy at Halloween if you just come dressed in the correct “costume”.
It does’ t necessarily bespeak the quality of legal education (although we would do well to remember that 50% of graduates in any field graduate in the lowest half of their class and don’t know as much as they should ). It speaks more to the fact that they don’t care. They are playing to an audience and simply hope they can get away with it. They know that most people (a) don’t know the Constitution as well as they should, and (b) don’t have the resources to fight the bad laws. Likewise, they know that there are judges and courts who will willingly, through ignorance or ideology, support unconstitutional laws, and that there are judges Supreme Court can and will take up a relatively few number of cases. At the least, they expect there bad laws will stay on the books a long time even if they are eventually struck down. Roe v. Wade, for example, was out there for 49 years before it was rightly reversed. Cynicism plays a big part in politics.
“we would do well to remember that 50% of graduates in any field graduate in the lowest half of their class and don’t know as much as they should”
I think that accepting that premise is part of the problem. A degree, particularly for a specific profession, should guarantee some minimum acceptable level of knowledge, otherwise the student should not graduate.
Not to defend CA, but the S is misleading. CA was not limiting the number of firearms, just the time frame in acquiring them.
OK,,,, what if CA goes from 30 days to 90? To protect the people.
“what if CA goes from 30 days to 90”
How about 5 years? 10 year? All such limits are de facto regulation of how many can be owned; all are unconstitutional.
Not true. If I just bought my first weapon, CA was forcibly preventing me from buying a second one for the next month, and the only defense it raised for this restriction was that I don’t have a constitutional right to a second weapon at all, so it can restrict my right to buy one. For that month it was limiting the number of firearms I can own to one.
I have to disagree with jjc. The “right to keep and bear arms” most certainly does apply to self defense even though it is not stated. Otherwise what are firearms or any arms useful for. They are the tools by which we protect ourselves. In most crimes, the police arrive to recover your body, or if still alive, maybe transport you to the hospital. It’s your personal responsibility to fight for your life because the police cannot be everywhere and you cannot always depend on someone else to defend you.
My wife will not carry or use a firearm but she still carries a knife in her purse. She may abhor firearms but she is not stupid either.
And sense the constitution was written right after the War of Independence when aroused citizens rose up, created an army and a government, and fought to defend their rights as a free people, I’ve absolutely confident that they meant self defense. Otherwise the War for Independence would have been a very short affair and a minor blip in history.
Context sort of matters a little bit.
Good point. It’ll make me think.
CA legislators typically create and pass legislation that is…1. Against the will of many constituents, 2. Of questionable value, and 3. Legally challengeable.
Any fight to right a legislative wrong doesn’t cost them at all. The populace pays.
“CA legislators typically create and pass legislation that is…”
Sadly, while Kalifornia legislators may provide a prominent cautionary example, they are far from the only parties guilty of those faults.
Spot on.
The failed state of CA gets a blow from the SC: Supreme Court Delivers Blow To California Climate Zealots
https://dailycaller.com/2025/06/20/supreme-court-delivers-blow-to-california-climate-zealots/?utm_source=referral&utm_medium=offthepress&utm_campaign=home
It does give one hope that little by little the facade of progressive utopia dreams are falling away, one by one, as they confront reality.
whimsicalmama,
Reality is something of an anathema to them. Even with this loss, I am sure progressives in Blue states will continue to try to mandate everyone into their failed dreams. Next truck I am buying is going to be a diesel. They cannot mandate us farmers to buy EV tractors.
My hope is that there will be fewer and fewer of them as the years pass since the majority of the lgbtq??? don’t procreate and the blue haired cat ladies are anathema to “toxic masculinity, and soyboys, if they do reproduce, sire weak, genetically questionable offspring. Eventually demographics will get them.
#. The population itself is unfamiliar today of agrarian life in open space and has become urban living lives on cement and not the land. Would a NYC environ hunt for rats? A farmer certainly does and other vermin. Today’s urban dweller hunts for people.
In addition there are too many immigrants having no idea what or who Americans really are and came here not for the political system but for the economic system. They wrongly heard lollipops and jelly rolls all day everyday was the rule and take from the system what they wrongly think is the system.
This guy Mahmoud Kahlil comes to mind with his statements of there will be justice. Yes, there will be. Abrego Garcia using the system when in the minds of Americans he’s nothing but a criminal wasting other people’s money.
You’ve left behind the death penalty for murder and have become co-dependent with the criminal as poor guy he couldn’t help it. He was poor. Let’s help him instead.
2A was written for a moral people and you’ve become a lawless people. Guns in your hands simply means what robbery can I perpetrate or what politician can I murder.
Cement, high rise dwellers really don’t need guns except to fend off the robber and drug pusher like your saints George Floyd or political assassin Luigi Mangione.
Yes, there is no restriction in 2A except morality.
^^^ wake up in the morning, turn talk radio on and listen to excerpts of Whoopi Goldberg spewing lies for 8 million dollars per year. It’s torture.
“there is no restriction in 2A except morality”
Nor should there be.
Well well!!
Mountaintop mountaintop!!
I guess they don’t teach in law school that an “s” added to the end of a noun makes it plural. The new is just funnier than the comics. You can’t make this stuff up. When the 9th circuit does stuff like this as well as what it did about deployment of the national guard you know these district judges are going off the deep end.
Judge Danielle Jo Forrest is a Trump appointee. Beijing’s buddies in Sacramento will be disappointed. We’re taking back the West Coast one judge at a time 🙂
Before the rationing law, Reed’s Sport Shop (RIP) in San Jose would have a monster two-day gun sale each year. There.would be factory reps. Reloading equipment. Gun safes lined the sidewalk in front of the store. People would naturally take advantage of the deeply discounted prices to buy several guns st once.
Suddenly, this was no longer possible. Ànd Reed’s — which sold every type of sporting good, not just guns — went out of business.
The same thing is happening in WA state. They have made it impossible to buy even a single gun with their new rules.
Yes, or gun shows with collectibles!
Anon: I think I get your point but the problem, as I see it, is that both “sides” tend to stretch the 2nd Amendment and that’s where the controversy begins. Consider your interpretation as a good example of what I’m trying to say. You add words that are not found in the Constitutional amendment (“natural right to self-defense.”). Every time we “add” words to the Constitution, we change its meaning. Two weeks ago, the SCOTUS decided in Ames v. Ohio Youth Department in favor of a white woman who filed a reverse discrimination case. Lower courts imposed a different standard of proof for majority people in such cases. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, writing for the court, concluded that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act does not require a heightened standard to prove discrimination. Justice Thomas added language reflective of what I’m trying to say here: “Judge-made doctrines have a tendency to distort the underlying statutory text, impose unnecessary burdens on litigants, and cause confusion for courts. The ‘background circumstances’ rule — correctly rejected by the Court today — is one example of this phenomenon.” Notably, the Ames verdict was unanimous! To show the relevance of Ames to your comment, over the years people of good intentions have seen fit to add interpretive language to the 2nd Amendment to support or deny gun rights to individuals. But this is not restricted to the 2nd Amendment. For more than 30 years, courts, including the SCOTUS, believed “abortion rights” resided within the privacy rights of the 4th Amendment. The Dobbs decision in 2022 reversed that thinking. Fortunately, you and I don’t have to make these important decisions. That’s the role of the SCOTUS to be the guardian and interpreter of the Constitution. And the court seems to do better when it sticks closely, that is, as close as possible, to the original intent and language of the Constitution.
WTF… what garbage you post.
Anon: Calm down, you’re not the only anon on this blog. I pressed the wrong button by mistake and wanted my comment to be a reply to anon who filed a comment to mine at 7:47 am. Thanks for your understanding.
JJC,
Whenever someone posts something interesting, or supports the rule of law or the good professor’s comments, that anony moron looses it.
UP
They sure do. I’ve noticed this moron is loosing it, more than ever.
Why so much difficulty learning the law? It’s not rocket science or brain surgery? It’s written down there in black and white. In print, even. Instead, you disingenuously misapprehend everything you encounter, thinking we’ll never know. Why do you continue to do this?
Ano
Just maybe you should re-read what jjc posted.
He was talking about the comments coming from the court.
The privacy rights discerned in the Constitution are not to be found in a single amendment, but in Harlan’s rational continuum, or Douglas’s emanations from a penumbra.
JJC,
Thank you for that legal analysis. Very interesting.
“Every time we “add” words to the Constitution, we change its meaning.”
I don’t see my formulation as “adding words to the Constitution”. In fact, the Constitution was drafted to authorize government power as narrowly as possible while securing the persistence of the Republic. The Articles describe the structure and limited authority of the Federal government. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments clarify and emphasize that if a power has not been explicitly declared to be within the province of that government, it does not exist. Section 1 of the Fourteenth effectively prohibits States from infringing on liberties guaranteed to citizens by the Constitution. My conclusion is that, absent any amendment prohibiting citizens from using arms to exercise the right to effective, individual self defense, whether or not you agree with me on the derivation of that right, (or for that matter, for any other purpose that does not directly conflict with the other provisions of the document), the Federal government, and by the extension of the 14th A., state governments, are denied the authority to do so.
You need to read the 2nd amendment more carefully. It does not create a RKBA; it merely recognizes that one already exists, and it forbids Congress from infringing it because doing so would interfere with the militia. That is NOT the reason the right exists, it’s not the right’s purpose, it’s merely the reason the constitution was specifically amendment to protect the right. But the right exists independently of that reason, and the main purpose the right actually serves is self-defense. Where does the right derive from? From the natural law right to self-defense, which of necessity must include the right to obtain the means to defend oneself.
The right of the people to bear arms is referring to the citizenry in general, not one individual.
It seems by the time these cases get to court, the lawyers exaggerate the opponent’s position. The CA law only restricts buying two guns in one 30-day period. That gets turned into “the state is limiting an individual to owning one gun” (stridently ignoring the 30 days , and that gun fanatics can legally space out their purchases and still obtain an armory over time.).
That said, what’s going to stop gang murders and crazed, alienated young men from shooting rampages is a law requiring an older adult co-sign and supervise a young person’s gun ownership. This is a modern version of how muskets were handed out and supervised by a militia captain in the 1780s. That captain kept guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, the senile and the drunkard for reasons of public order and safety. The 2nd Amendment assumes a level of loose supervion in the preamble, “a well regulated militia….”
You got facts tp back that opinion?
Was your lobotomy painful? Every statement and claim you have made here has been disproven hundreds of time before this feeble effort. Yet you continue down this road as if you’re exploring new territory.
ANO
Look up the new gun law in WA state. They have made it impossible to even buy a gun.
It’s nuts, but the state supreme will go with it.
At the time the Constitution was written, and for a century afterwards, “well-regulated” was understood to mean “to function according to expectations,” as a Regulator clock kept accurate time. Henry James wrote of “a well-regulated young woman of his own [the protagonist’s] set.” Anna Leonowens wrote of her well-regulated, smudged-faced young son. Neither young women nor small boys were subject to government regulation.
Then the right of the people to be secure in their persons must also refer to the citizenry in general, not one individual.
Because no document subject to editing would define a word one way in the first paragraph, a quite different way in the second paragraph, and go back to the first way in the fourth paragraph
I may be wrong, but I believe the rights referred to in all ten amendments of the Bill of Rights have been interpreted to mean individual rights, not classes of people. It does not make sense that only the 2A would be different.
Regardless, the central planners have taken it upon themselves to create a fairly long list of classes of people who the central planners have decided may not lawfully possess firearms. They are referred to in the federal statutes as “prohibited possessors”.
Merely being indicted, not convicted, of a felony makes a person a prohibited possessor. People properly adjudicated as mentally defective are prohibited possessors. People convicted of even misdemeanor domestic violence are prohibited possessors. There are several other classes of people deemed to be prohibited possessors.
What has always fascinated me about gun control nuts is the irrational belief that criminals determined to possess firearms care that the central planners have deemed it unlawful for them to do so. It’s a fantasy land belief.
We need no government supervision or permission to exercise a Contitutionally protected Right.
“what’s going to stop gang murders and crazed, alienated young men from shooting rampages is a law requiring an older adult co-sign and supervise a young person’s gun ownership.”
You are completely delusional if you think that requirement would serve in anyway to prevent gangbangers, or “crazed alienated young men” (and/or women, to correct the unmerited sexism of your remark) from obtaining a firearm or any other weapon, and using it to deprive others of their money, property, security, and lives. The groups you describe intrinsically ignore laws of all kinds, in addition to paying no heed to anyone else’s rights.
The right of the people to bear arms is referring to the citizenry in general, not one individual.
That’s an outright, deliberate LIE. You KNOW it’s not true. If it were true then the same would of necessity have to apply to “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”, and “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures”, and yet you would never agree to such a ridiculous claim. Each individual has the right to assemble with others, and each individual has the right not to be unreasonably searched or seized; therefore each individual also has the right to be armed.
And weapons were NOT “handed out and supervised by a militia captain”. Each militiaman had to bring his OWN weapons, that HE had bought and trained with and carried around for self-defense. The second amendment does not assume any level of supervision. A well-regulated militia means nothing more or less than a citizenry that is well-armed and well-trained.
What is going on with the Ninth Circuit? They ruled in favor of Trump concerning the National Guard and they ruled in favor of the Second Amendment?? Did somebody wake them from their slumber ??
Billy: The other day there was a great quote on SCOTUSBlog: “The Fifth Circuit has become the new Ninth Circuit!” 🙂
They may be Lefty Liberals on The 9th, but more importantly, through their recent rulings, they appear to be pragmatists. Absolutely no appetite for a likely SCOTUS rebuke
That someone in the California legislation decided to bring this proposal forward in the first place speaks volumes. I’m gonna go back and take a look at who wrote this one just for a laugh
OOOOOO-boy.
The internet is going to go nuts today.
BREAKING UPDATE: Minnesota assassin left unhinged letter claiming Tim Walz instructed him to kill: report
“unhinged letter claiming Tim Walz instructed him to kill”
Did the assassin also claim that Walz also instructed him in rifle handling ;-?
It’s not a good look for California that they have lurched so extreme left that even the 9th Circuit is to their right!
“…even the 9th Circuit is to their right…”
That may be a bit of overstatement, but I do find it amazing that the 9th Circuit has shot down two leftist, unconstitutional efforts by Kali despots in single week.
California Courts and manof their Judges are a Joke, Left Wing Woke DEM Courts .Of late, the Appeals courts and Supreme Courts have overruled the lower Courts and Woke Judges. Another loss for Hair Gel Go. Newscum
While I’m not a great fan of gun “rights,” I do appreciate and applaud the Ninth Circuit’s commitment to the literal language of the Constitution. Too often, liberal judges like to create laws through broad interpretations that essentially rewrite the statutes. Both the Ninth Circuit and the SCOTUS have based several important decisions of late on the original intent and language of the Constitution. That is an admirable trend and one that all Americans should embrace.
“…I’m not a great fan of gun “rights”…”
The only requirement is to acknowledge the Second Amendment, and the lack of authorization in the Constitution for government to impair an individual’s natural right to self-defense.