A federal appeals court has temporarily reinstated California’s ammunition background check law that a U.S. district judge in San Diego struck down as unconstitutional last week.
Attorney General Rob Bonta had asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to stay the judge’s Jan. 31 decision while his office appealed the ruling. On Monday, a three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit granted the stay motion in a 2-1 decision.
The law in question requires background checks for nearly all purchases of firearm ammunition in the state and bars California residents from bringing home ammunition that they purchase out of state. U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez struck down those regulations last week, ruling the law violated the Second Amendment and the dormant Commerce Clause.
As part of his ruling, Benitez issued an immediate injunction barring the state from enforcing the law and later denied Bonta’s request to stay the decision pending appeal. That meant California residents were able to purchase ammunition without undergoing background checks for about five days until the 9th Circuit granted the stay Monday.
“California has regained a crucial tool in the fight against gun violence, as the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted our motion to stay the district court’s injunction against enforcement of our ammunition background check laws,” Bonta said in a statement. “California’s life-saving ammunition laws will remain in effect as we continue to defend them in court.”
In declining to stay his ruling last week, Benitez had written that the government’s case in the lawsuit challenging the law was “weak.” He said his decision was based on four legal principles that all favored not granting the stay.
The two appellate judges who granted the stay — Richard Clifton, a President George W. Bush appointee, and Holly Thomas, a President Joe Biden appointee — did not give a reason for doing so, though they cited the case law that sets the standard for granting a stay pending appeal.
Bush appointee Consuelo Callahan echoed Benitez’s reasoning for why she would have denied the motion.
“I do not believe (Bonta) has met his burden of showing a likelihood of success on the merits or that irreparable injury will occur absent a stay,” Callahan wrote in her dissent.
The California Rifle & Pistol Association, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, criticized the 9th Circuit for “(wiping) out the lengthy, well reasoned ruling issued by Judge Benitez negating the state’s onerous restrictions on ammunition purchases.”
Benitez’s ruling, his denial of the stay and the 9th Circuit’s granting of the stay played out almost identically in the same case nearly four years ago. In April 2020, Benitez struck down the same law, but the 9th Circuit reinstated it just a few days later while the government appealed.
But before the 9th Circuit could rule on that appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in a New York gun case that upended Second Amendment case law, which prompted the 9th Circuit to send the case back to Benitez. Now, it’s once again back with the appeals court.
