Gun Rights Groups Challenge California’s One-Gun-Per-Month Restriction

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Gun Rights Groups Challenge California’s One-Gun-Per-Month RestrictionU.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- A coalition of gun rights organizations including the Second Amendment Foundation and Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc. are asking a federal court in California for an injunction against enforcement of the state’s one-gun-per-month restriction on the grounds that it violates the Second Amendment. Joining SAF and FPC are the San Diego County Gun Owners PAC, North County Shooting Center, Inc., PWGG, L.P., a California Limited Partnership, and six private citizens, Michelle Nguyen, Dominic Boguski, Jay Medina, Frank Colletti, John Phillips and Darin Prince, according to the court document obtained by AmmoLand News. The 43-page complaint names California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Luis Lopez, director of the state Department of Justice, Bureau of Firearms in their official capacities as defendants. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California in San Diego. The case is known as Nguyen v. Becerra. Plaintiffs are represented by attorney Raymond M. DiGuiseppe of Southport, N.C. According to SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb, “California’s one-handgun-per-month purchasing restriction is an unconstitutional prohibition that will also apply to all semiautomatic centerfire rifles starting in July. The policy discriminates against private citizens because it does not apply to motion picture, television or video production companies, which we call the ‘Hollywood exemption.’ The way Becerra and Lopez enforce the law amounts to an infringement on the individual right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment, and a violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.” Under the law, there are exceptions to the limitation:

• Any law enforcement agency;
• Any agency duly authorized to perform law enforcement duties;
• Any state or local correctional facility;
• Any private security company licensed to do business in California;
• Any person who is properly identified as a full-time paid peace officer, as defined in Chapter 4.5 (commencing with Section 830) of Title 3 of Part 2, and who is authorized to, and does carry a firearm during the course and scope of employment as a peace officer;
• Any motion picture, television, or video production company or entertainment or theatrical company whose production by its nature involves the use of a firearm;
• Any person who may, pursuant to Article 2 (commencing with Section 27600), Article 3 (commencing with Section 27650), or Article 4 (commencing with Section 27700), claim an exemption from the waiting period set forth in Section 27540;
• Any transaction conducted through a licensed firearms dealer pursuant to Chapter 5 (commencing with Section 28050);
• Any person who is licensed as a collector pursuant to Chapter 44 (commencing with Section 921) of Title 18 of the United States Code and the regulations issued pursuant thereto, and has a current certificate of eligibility issued by the Department of Justice pursuant to Article 1 (commencing with Section 26700) of Chapter 2;
• The exchange of a handgun where the dealer purchased that firearm from the person seeking the exchange within the 30-day period immediately preceding the date of exchange or replacement;
• The replacement of a handgun when the person’s handgun was lost or stolen, and the person reported that firearm lost or stolen pursuant to Section 25250 prior to the completion of the application to purchase the replacement handgun;
• The return of any handgun to its owner; and,
• A community college that is certified by the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training to present the law enforcement academy basic course or other commission-certified law enforcement training.

As noted in the lawsuit, “No legitimate—much less compelling—state interest exists in establishing this arbitrarily disparate treatment.” Gottlieb said the law shouldn’t exist in the first place. By no small coincidence, the one-gun-per-month limit in California is a restriction incoming President-elect Joe Biden wants to impose nationwide as part of his gun control scheme. How successful he will be may largely depend upon the outcome of the runoff elections in Georgia to fill two U.S. Senate seats. Incumbent Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are being challenged by far-left Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. Biden is appearing in an advertisement explaining how he “needs” both men to win. A few days ago, firearms attorney and author Ryan Cleckner wrote an Op-Ed in The Federalist, identifying six possible moves Biden will make regarding firearms.

• Ban pistol braces, which seems likely considering Friday’s posting by the BATFE “Objective Factors for Classifying Weapons with Stabilizer Braces,” which Fredy Reihl, editor at AmmoLand News, calls “a thinly veiled blueprint for the largest firearm registration–and ultimately potentially confiscation–scheme in U.S. history.”
•  Banning homemade firearms/80 percent receivers
•  Banning online firearm and ammunition sales
•  Shortly after the first bans, and if he has the help of the Senate, the next gun control measures will likely be:
•  Banning “assault weapons”
•  Banning “high capacity” magazines
•  Requiring universal background checks

This new California lawsuit is one of several challenging the very kinds of gun control laws advocated by Biden, Vice President-elect (and former California Attorney General) Kamala Harris and the far-left wing of the Democrat party. In recent weeks, SAF and FPC have filed two other legal actions challenging Golden State gun laws. Read about them here and here. If the lawsuit against the one-gun-per-month restriction is successful, it could lead to the end of such laws in other parts of the country, most notably Virginia, where Democrats quickly reinstated it earlier this year when they took control of the General Assembly in Richmond. RELATED: SB Tactical: Proposed ATF Brace Regulations Nothing More Than Registration Scheme
About Dave Workman Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.