A federal judge is set to rule on a lawsuit filed against the State of California over legislation that would require a gun buyer to reveal an abundance of personal information to research institutions.
The complaint, filed in the Southern District of California, challenges Assembly Bill (AB) 173, which amends California’s firearm laws to authorize the Attorney General to disclose an individual’s personal information to the California Firearm Violence Research Center at the University of California, Davis. That personal information includes name, address, place of birth, phone number, occupation, driver’s license or ID number, race, sex, height, weight, hair color, eye color, social security number and types of firearms that they own.
“Those amendments violate and infringe on the rights of Plaintiffs and millions of other law-abiding citizens under the federal and state constitutions, and state statutes,” wrote Attorney Michael B. Reynolds in the Jan. 5 complaint.
Attorney General Rob Bonta seeks to dismiss the case presided over by U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns.
“Plaintiffs contend that AB 173 violates their constitutional right to informational privacy by directing the Department to share records with researchers that include personal information—name, address, ID number, physical characteristics, and status as a firearm owner,” Bonta stated in the March 4 brief. “But the law required that before AB 173 took effect. So, invalidating the law will accomplish little.”
Currently, the personal information of gun owners is maintained in a registry called the Automated Firearms System (AFS) managed by the California Department of Justice (DOJ).
"It's one thing for it to be in the DOJ database but it's another to be in the UC Davis database or any other database where anybody can have access to it," said legal observer and attorney John Shu. "The people at UC Davis are not doing this research because they love gun owners. It's not like that and, even if they did, they still shouldn't have access to this kind of information because they don't need it. They can easily do all of this research if the information were anonymous."
Bonta further raised the following arguments in his pleading, which Shu disputes.
The plaintiffs have not alleged facts showing that the information in the Dealers’ Record of Sale Form DROS system and AFS is the sort of information that receives constitutional protection.
“I don't think that's accurate,” Shu said. “You couldn't ask for better information for either an identity thief, a regular thief, or some other felon than your name, your address, your place of birth, your phone number, your job, your driver's license, your social security number, what kind of guns and how many you own. That's just insane.”
California has a strong interest in providing firearm-related information to a small group of researchers to help understand and address firearm violence.
“Yes, I think California certainly does but it has to be narrowly tailored, and either you apply the standard equally and fairly across the board and to all people or you have to realize that it's not narrowly tailored,” Shu told the Southern California Record. “Almost all this research that they want to do can be done anonymously.”
AB 173 does not impact conduct protected by the Second Amendment and the plaintiffs' claim, therefore fails at step one of the second amendment analysis.
“That’s not true,” Shu added. “Nobody is going to buy a gun legally because they know that their information will end up in an identity thief’s hands but people will protect themselves and their children if they have to. If it means buying an illegal gun, they may do that or they may just move out of state.”