California’s Big Brother Approach to Gun Stores Questioned at Ninth Circuit

In recent years, gun control advocates have begun targeting gun sellers as well as gun buyers, imposing state licensing mandates that come with a number of costly security and reporting mandates. In New Mexico, lawmakers have paired a ban on semi-automatic long guns with a “gun dealer accountability” measure, while Virginia Democrats have introduced standalone legislation that, among other things, requires FFLs to film and record “video footage inside and outside buildings where firearms are stored.” 

A similar provision took effect in California in 2024, requiring all gun store owners to record both video and audio of all firearm transactions and store that data for three years. The law is being challenged by the Second Amendment Foundation, California Rifle & Pistol Association, Gun Owners of California, and several individual plaintiffs. A district court judge tossed out the lawsuit in October, 2024, but on Monday a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit took up the plaintiffs’ appeal. 

“This case is not whether the government may regulate a licensed entity,” appellants’ attorney Anna Barvir told the three-judge panel. “It is about whether the government may require private parties to carry out a suspicionless government surveillance program.”

Barvir argued the constant recording of conversations and movements during firearm transactions chilled speech. And U.S. Circuit Judge Kenneth Lee seemed to agree.

“The audio is troubling, because I don’t think you need that information,” said Lee, a Donald Trump appointee. “There is a lot of core political speech … and it will have a chilling effect if they think the government can have a year’s worth of everything you say, you will be deterred from saying things.”

Deputy Attorney General Anne Bellows insisted the audio recordings are necessary to assist government investigations of gun thefts, straw purchases and illegal arms trafficking. She also noted there are “very strict limits on access” to the recordings, and the audio would “have to show an objective circumstance that would lead someone to believe that there could be a harm that resulted from their speech.”

“The Legislature made the judgment that audio would further efforts to fight and deter some of the crimes that are at issue,” Bellows said.

The plaintiffs aren’t raising a Second Amendment argument on appeal, so the state of California doesn’t have to find any kind of historical analogue to back up the law. But as Judge Lee pointed out, the First Amendment implications here are obvious. Any conversations that indicates a straw purchase that’s recorded and available to the government will be few and far between. The vast amount of data that is stored is going to cover conversations that take place during a lawful firearms transfer, and I think Barvir makes a solid point by describing this as a government surveillance program. 

Suspicionless, though? Well, not exactly, because California government views every gun owner, every FFL, and every firearms transaction with suspicion, even when there’s  no rational basis to do so. No other industry is treated by the state in this fashion, but the legislature’s hostility towards the right to keep and bear arms knows no bounds. 

Moros believes this will be a 2-1 decision, with Judge Ana de Alba, a Biden appointee, as the swing vote. The judge did seem somewhat skeptical about the mandate to record and maintain audio of these transactions during oral arguments, but that doesn’t mean she’ll ultimately side with the plaintiffs. 

This won’t be the last lawsuit filed over these kinds of restrictions on FFLs, sadly. With Democrats across the country putting a bullseye on firearm retailers, we’re unfortunately sure to see similar complaints in the months ahead. 

Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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