The battle against California’s oppressive gun show laws might just be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court—that is if the pro-freedom Second Amendment Foundation has anything to do with it.
The case revolves around the California law prohibiting gun shows on public property, which SAF argues violates both the First and Second Amendment rights of Golden State gun owners. Joining SAF in the case, named B&L Productions, Inc. v. Newsom, are the California Rifle & Pistol Association, South Bay Rod & Gun Club, Asian Pacific American Gun Owners Association, Second Amendment Law Center, L.A.X. Firing Range, B&L Productions and several private citizens.
SAF has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. Alan M. Gottlieb, SAF’s founder and executive vice president, said the question is whether the state can adopt laws and policies that abridge and impair First and Second Amendment rights by banning gun shows on public property.
“We are at a point where California has essentially ignored the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2022 that eliminated the use of ‘judicial balancing tests’ when deciding Second Amendment claims while trampling on the First Amendment protections of speech, which is necessary for the commerce of lawful products,” Gottlieb said in a news release announcing the action.
In the filing, the plaintiffs argued that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in an earlier ruling, failed to follow the steps outlined by the Supreme Court in the 2022 Bruen decision.
“Under New York State Pistol & Rifle Association v. Bruen, the government must prove that a ban on Second Amendment commerce is part of an enduring historical tradition,” the petition stated. “Rejecting Petitioners’ Second Amendment claims, the Ninth Circuit abandoned the straightforward test set forth in Bruen and instead applied an interest-balancing ‘meaningful constraint’ test.”
In fact, the petition to the Supreme Court makes a good case that the lower courts that found in favor of the gun show ban ignored the law in doing so.
“The courts that are in error below did not even feign a pretextual adherence to a correctly stated rule of law,” the petition stated. “They laid waste to the First Amendment by sanctioning the censorship of communications necessary for commerce in lawful products. By judicial fiat, an ‘acceptance’ made during contract formation became unprotected speech in the Ninth Circuit.
“Moving on to other (apparently) disfavored rights, the circuit court ignored this Court’s mandate that judicial balancing tests have no place when adjudicating Second Amendment claims.”
In the end, the petition asks that the Supreme Court overrule the lower court’s role in creating new categories of unprotected speech, exercise its supervisory powers by admonishing the 9th Circuit for its bias against Second Amendment litigants, grant Certiorari because the Ninth Circuit’s Decision conflicts with the high court’s Second Amendment decisions and reiterate that legislative animus resulting in the denial of access to a public forum supports an equal protection claim under the Fourteenth Amendment.
SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut said that the state’s laws banning gun shows on public property must be overturned, and the Supreme Court should do just that.
“California’s laws and policies are being used to prevent gun owners, who are honest and peaceable citizens, from congregating and conducting lawful commerce on public property,” Kraut concluded. “If the state is allowed to continue, neither the First nor Second Amendments are safe from California’s legal choke hold. We are hopeful the Court will grant certiorari.”
