Gun Owners of America & Gun Owners of Foundation File Joint Lawsuit Confronting California’s Surveillance Mandates for Gun Dealers

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Dec 21, 2023

On December 19. 2023, Gun Owners of America (GOA) and the Gun Owners Foundation (GOF) teamed up with Gun Owners of California (GOC) and multiple other plaintiffs in filing a lawsuit confronting California’s SB 1384, which establishes intrusive surveillance requirements on California gun dealers. These requirements are set to take place on January 1, 2024. As noted in an email GOA sent to its members, these requirements would do the following: 

  • force every gun dealer in the state to install sophisticated surveillance equipment that records both video and audio of every gun sale that occurs in California; 
  • force dealers to bear the cost to purchase and install this prohibitively expensive system, which can run into the tens of thousands of dollars (one big box store reportedly has spent over $250,000 to comply, at only one location); 
  • force dealers to allow state officials access to the recordings, upon demand;  
  • require dealers to post signage informing customers that their activities are being recorded; and 
  • does not exempt California’s home-based dealers, who will be forced to install state surveillance equipment within their own homes. 

GOA and GOF’s lawsuit puts forward several challenges to this anti-gun power grab: 

  • several First Amendment challenges based on (i ) freedom of speech, (ii) freedom of association, (iii) the right to engage in anonymous speech, (iv) a compelled speech claim, and (v) a claim that SB 1384 represents viewpoint discrimination against gun owners; 
  • a Second Amendment challenge, because there is no historical evidence that our Founders ever would have permitted the government to monitor the real-time exercise of the right to keep and bear arms; 
  • a Fourth Amendment challenge, because SB 1384 represents a per se unconstitutional “general warrant” … it invades private property rights … and it violates gun stores’, customers’, and homeowners’ reasonable expectations of privacy; and 
  • a Fifth Amendment takings claim, because SB 1384 takes and appropriates, for government use, physical space within gun stores and private homes; 
  • a Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection claim, because SB 1384 singles out and discriminates against gun stores, treating them differently than all other businesses in California; and 
  • a claim under the California state constitution’s right to privacy. 

Erich Pratt, GOA’s Senior Vice President, made the following statement:             

These new restrictions from Governor Newsom and his cabal in Sacramento read as though they were scripted straight out of 1984. These are the most intrusive and egregious violations of privacy imaginable, and we will not stop until they are defeated.

Sam Paredes,  the Executive Director of Gun Owners of California, offer his two cents::     

This may be the worst of the worst, which is truly a high bar to meet for anti-gunners, even in California. Imagine how much this will chill speech and even directly deter individuals from buying guns in the first place – plus, imagine how intrusive it would be for a gun dealer operating out of the home! Shame on California, and we look forward to making our case in court.

With how anti-gun California has become, it’s undeniable that legislative means of fixing its gun policies are no longer a viable option for gun owners. For better or for worse, litigation is the most practical strategy for gun owners in the Golden State to roll back gun control and come closer to restoring their gun rights.

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