California AG Says Ammo Law Still Being Enforced Despite Ninth Circuit Decision

After the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling declaring California’s background check requirement on ammunition sales unconstitutional last week, several online retailers were quick to announce that they were once again shipping to California customers. 

California Rifle & Pistol Association head and Second Amendment attorney Chuck Michel, who has spearheaded the litigation against the background check scheme, was quick to point out that while the Ninth Circuit panel agreed with U.S. District Court Judge Roger T. Benitez that the law violates the Second Amendment, it had not yet issued an order halting enforcement of the statute, and these companies (and their customers) were jumping the gun (no pun intended) by resuming online sales to California residents. 

Now California Attorney General Rob Bonta has officially weighed in, and just as Michel suspected, the anti-gun AG is committed to enforcing the law until the Ninth Circuit specifically tells him otherwise. 

For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, CA DOJ finally posted a public statement concerning Rhode and the ammunition background check law’s status. As I originally stated following the opinion, CA DOJ is clearly taking the position that the law is still in effect. pic.twitter.com/zmpEy0moNI

— Matt Cubeiro (@MatthewCubeiro) July 29, 2025

As Bonta notes, there are several procedural steps that have to happen before the panel’s opinion and permanent injunction can take effect, including the Ninth Circuit issuing an order rendering its decision final and remanding the case back to Judge Benitez. Bonta himself can also appeal the panel’s decision; either to an en banc panel of Ninth Circuit judges or to the Supreme Court, and he can (and almost certainly will) seek a stay of the injunction while the case is being appealed. 

Is it petty and vindictive of Bonta to continue to enforce a law that a district and appellate court have both found unconstitutional? Absolutely, but why would we expect anything less of him? Bonta continued to defend California’s ammunition background scheme even when it became obvious that the checks were falsely denying far more lawful gun owners than accurately denying prohibited persons from acquiring ammunition. For that matter, Bonta’s defended almost every one of California’s challenged gun control laws. A notable exception was a law promoted by Gavin Newsom that required plaintiffs who challenged gun laws in court to pay attorney’s fees to the state unless they prevailed on every claim in their lawsuit, but Bonta only refused to defend that law because it was modeled after an anti-abortion law in Texas that Bonta had previously called unconstitutional. 

Every other infringement on our right to keep and bear arms, though, has been vigorously defended by the California Attorney General, and I have no doubt he’ll use his prosecutorial powers to go after companies who are selling ammunition online to California customers directly, instead of shipping the ammo to an FFL for the buyer to go through a background check, which is what the unconstitutional statute requires. 

Bonta may even target Californians who purchase ammunition in neighboring states like Arizona and bring that ammo back home, which is also prohibited under the challenged statute. The courts may have ruled against Bonta in the Rhode case, but the AG will exercise his petty tyranny until the judiciary explicitly bars him from doing so. 

I’m somewhat surprised we haven’t seen the panel issue their official mandate yet, especially given the confusion over the enforceability of the law. Hopefully that will soon take place, and the Ninth Circuit will deny Bonta’s inevitable request to keep enforcing the ammunition background check law while he continues to defend it in court. Neither of those things are guaranteed, though, so buyers (and sellers) need to beware of Bonta’s intent to enforce the law in the meantime. 

Editor’s Note: The Democrat Party has never been less popular as voters reject its anti-freedom agenda.

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