The U.S. Supreme Court on April 28 declined to hear a challenge to the restrictive California law prohibiting gun shows on publicly owned property.
In 2022, the California legislature passed a law forbidding all gun shows on public property. In response, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), California Rifle & Pistol Association (CRPA) and others, including gun show promoter B&L Productions Inc., filed a lawsuit challenging the ban.
“The state has been regulating gun show operations almost out of existence, and more restrictive than brick-and-mortar retail gun shops or even internet sales,” SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb said at the time the lawsuit was filed. “Now the California Senate Bill 256 ban amounts to a total deprivation of rights under the color of law, including the First Amendment rights of free speech and freedom of assembly, and the 14th Amendment’s equal protection under the law.”
After a district court ruled the law to be constitutional, on appeal, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s ruling. The court held that the challenged statutes do not infringe on B&L’s constitutional rights.
The court found that the statutes solely restrict non-expressive conduct—contracting for the sale of firearms—and are not subject to First Amendment scrutiny. Additionally, the court ruled that the plain text of the Second Amendment does not cover B&L’s proposed conduct.
The California Rifle and Pistol Association (CRPA) called the ruling “extremely disappointing” and signaled that it would appeal.
“The three-judge panel clearly did not understand the connection between First Amendment and Second Amendment rights,” the organization wrote in a statement. “CRPA will continue to protect the despised gun culture and fight back against an overreaching government that seeks to limit disfavored fundamental rights and discriminate against certain groups of people on state property.”
In a brief filed urging the Supreme Court to consider the case, SAF stated: “Under New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the government must prove that a ban on Second Amendment commerce is part of an enduring historical tradition. 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.”
The brief also asked an important question: “Our Constitution vests final judicial review in only one Supreme Court, all other courts being subordinate. If those subordinate courts are defying that Court, can there be a more compelling reason to grant a petition for certiorari?”
Ultimately, despite both SAF, CRPA and the National Rifle Association (NRA) petitioning the Supreme Court to consider the case, justices chose to leave the ban in place. That’s unfortunate for California’s gun owners, prospective gun owners, gun show promoters and liberty itself.
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