Judge Overturns California’s Ammunition Background Check Law

A San Diego federal judge blocked California’s law that requires a criminal background check to purchase ammunition, which had been the only law of its kind in the country.

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez issued the ruling, in response to litigation from the California Rifle & Pistol Association. The ammunition background check law had entered into effect in July, and often made it impossible for law abiding gun owners to purchase ammunition due to the lengthy background process involved.

This isn’t the first California gun control law that Benitez has overturned. The San Diego judge previously overturned the state’s ban on standard capacity rifle magazines, although his ruling on the matter was promptly reversed by a higher court of appeals.

Benitez slammed the ammunition regulation in a forceful 120-page ruling, explaining that it was a clear cut violation of the Second Amendment.

“The experiment has been tried. The casualties have been counted. California’s new ammunition background check law misfires and the Second Amendment rights of California citizens have been gravely injured.

Criminals, tyrants, and terrorists don’t do background checks. The background check experiment defies common sense while unduly and severely burdening the Second Amendment rights of every responsible, gun-owning citizen desiring to lawfully buy ammunition.”

Benitez cited data that indicated the woefully executed law ended up denying ammunition purchases to lawful gun owners at least 16% of the time they attempted an ammunition purchase.

California had also been banning the importation of ammunition from other U.S. states, a clear violation of interstate commerce laws.

The onerous gun control law may find a way to survive if the state appeals the ruling to a higher court, but California’s gun-grabbing state government was quite decisively walloped in Judge Benitez’s courtroom.