By Joe Garcia, CalMatters
Lifelong hunter J.R. Young of San Jose rushed to an online ammunition dealer last week after a federal court decision overturned a California gun law that required background checks in person at every point of sale.
“Is this freedom week?” he said. “I was just curious to see if this striking down of the law is allowing companies to ship into the state again.
“The way we live in society now — when we want to buy something, we don’t want to go and take a trip to the store.”
Many bullet junkies, hunters and gun enthusiasts like Young quietly celebrated the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that may or may not ultimately put a dent in the state’s strict policies for purchasing ammunition.
For now, they can’t avoid the background checks. Four days after the decision, gun and ammunition dealers received notice that the in-state background check law still holds until the Department of Justice processes the ruling and issues an official mandate.
It’s unclear what will happen to the online ammunition orders Californians tried to make before that notice.
Second Amendment advocates have been here before. They have challenged the constitutionality of the measure that restricted gun ownership, Proposition 63, ever since voters approved it in 2016 and have seen a mix of rulings for and against them.
This time, the case is unfolding after a landmark 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down a New York City concealed carry law and generally limited how cities and states can restrict access to firearms.
Gov. Gavin Newsom criticized the 9th Circuit ruling that curbed the California background checks, but neither he nor Attorney General Rob Bonta have said whether the state would appeal it. Newsom was the primary advocate for Prop. 63, and he has defended the state’s restrictions on the sale of guns and ammunition as meaningful in reducing gun violence.
Under the measure, consumers pay a fee for the background check, which just last month rose from $1 to $5 per sale. But more costly than that, an additional 11% excise tax went into effect in 2024 for the Gun Violence Prevention and School Safety Fund — money allocated for prevention, education, research, response, and investigation programs. That tax won’t change under the new ruling.
“Being in a one-party state, they’re going to continue to push and regulate,” said Patrick Jones, a gun store owner in Redding. “And while this may be a victory, it’s hard to get really excited about it because it’s just one in a sea of court battles that are coming.”
Jones’ Fort continues to stay in business after 60 years, but the family-owned store has seen better days.
“It’s a dying industry,” he said. “It’s not a friendly or fun business anymore. When you regulate and regulate and regulate, you kill an industry. And that’s what they want to do in California.”
Gun rights proponents are anticipating an appeal that will keep the background checks in place.
“I’m not sure why they’ve been so quiet about it,” said Kostas Moros of the Second Amendment Foundation. “You’d think they’d want to be the first to say, ‘No, no — we think this is still in effect.’ But that’s led to the confusing scenario where out of state ammo dealers had no way to know this.”
Aside from the sheer question of the background checks’ constitutionality, Moros pointed to a high rate of erroneous denials that emerged in the course of the lawsuit.
“We’re not dealing here with some reasonable version of this law,” said Moros. “It wrongfully denies, by the state’s own admission, 11% of people who try and use it. And the ratio of mistaken denials versus actual prohibited people, by the state’s own data, was 411 to 1.
“I don’t think we’d tolerate this if voter registration erroneously rejected you one out of 10 times. I don’t think that would stand for very long.”
Meanwhile in San Jose, Young kept an eye on his ammunition shipment’s tracking information from Missouri to Kansas on July 26. He’d already been charged for the purchase, but MidwayUSA had updated its website and discontinued sales to California after the justice department’s July 28 notice to dealers.
The two boxes of bullets he ordered arrived at his home on July 30. “LOL, impulsiveness paid off,” said Young, who’d previously expressed a fear of missing out on the chance at lower prices.
“To be honest, I do prefer to support my local businesses,” he said. “I run a small business myself, so I want to buy in my neighborhood. But this one, the ruling just really had me curious as to where it stands.”
Not all California gun owners and ammunition buyers feel the same as Young, however.
“We’re so close to Oregon and Reno that people are just buying out of state,” said Jones, in Redding. Besides watching his sales steadily decline over the years, he’s also seen a noticeable migration to states with more gun-friendly legislation.
“I have had a ton of customers that have left California — whether it’s Tennessee, or Utah, Idaho, Texas, all over. Often, within one day’s drive, they pick up a lot of freedom.”
But despite his political animosity, Jones said he’s not leaving his home state. “They can escape the tyranny for now, but I think you have to fight it like a disease. If you don’t fight it where it’s at, it’s going to catch you.”
Joe Garcia is a California Local News fellow.
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