A series of federal court decisions last month have left California residents where they started - having to pass a background check to purchase ammunition - but it isn't over yet, a firearms advocate contends.
The case has serious implications given the uptick in firearm purchases amid uncertainty spawned by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, California Rifle & Pistol Association President and General Counsel Chuck Michel told the Southern California Record.
“The state wants to block the District Court’s order allowing ammunition to be sold as it had been for a hundred years at the exact same time the value of a firearm as a self-defense tool is even more realized given these uncertain times," Michel said. "We expect to be back in court to show that the state’s failed scare tactics are just as invalid now as they were when the District Court rejected them in the past.”
The legal tussle over the state's ammunition background check law, which passed in a 2016 ballot initiative and went into effect last summer, began in late April.
On April 23, Judge Roger Benitez, on the bench in California's Southern District, issued a preliminary injunction on the state's background check law. Benitez ruled that the state's ammunition background check law "misfires and the Second Amendment rights of California citizens have been gravely injured."
Benitez, nominated to the U.S. District Court seat in May 2003 by President George W. Bush, referred to the ammo background check law in his 20-page order as "onerous and convoluted."
The following day, Friday, April 24, Benitez issued an order denying the state's request for a stay on his injunction, saying his Thursday order had been necessary.
"Without an injunction, these law-abiding individuals have no legal way to acquire the ammunition which they enjoy the constitutional right of possession," Benitez wrote in denying the stay. "These law-abiding individuals whose numbers are vast have no way to lawfully acquire ammunition to defend themselves, their families and their homes. The injunction restores that right."
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed later on April 24 when it issued its emergency stay that reinstated enforcement of the law and leaving state residents facing a background check to purchase ammunition. The appeals court's stay, "pending further court order," provided no additional comment.