California City Set to Repeal Gun Control Law After 2A Groups File Legal Challenge

Inglewood, California is set to repeal its gun rationing law at Tuesday’s city council meeting, about six weeks after the Firearms Policy Coalition, California Gun Rights Foundation, and Los Angeles County resident Thomas Lopez filed suit over the restriction. 

The city’s ordinance limits handgun purchases to just one every 30 days, and has been in place since 1999. Last year, however, California gun owners won a rare victory in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a case called Nguyen v. Bonta, where the state’s “1-in-30” law was struck down on Second Amendment grounds. The court held that the Second Amendment protects the right to possess multiple firearms, as well as acquiring them without “meaningful constraint.” The appellate panel also concluded that the state of California did not put forth any kind of evidence of a national tradition regulating the frequency of firearm purchases.

Lawmakers in Sacramento have responded by introducing a new measure that would limit gun purchases to three every 30 days, which is still going to run afoul of the text, history, and tradition test. But while the state law has been enjoined, FPC and CGRF discovered that there are several municipal gun rationing schemes still in place, including in Los Angeles and Inglewood. 

In a memo to council members, the Inglewood City Attorney’s office wrote that the  Ninth Circuit’s decision “calls into question the validity and enforceability of the City’s restriction,” and recommended “the proposed Ordinance be adopted to repeal the restriction currently in the Inglewood Municipal Code.”

The memo went on to note that “staff has not located any business within the City where an individual can legally purchase a weapon,” so it’s impossible to violate the ordinance anyway. 

Inglewood has a population of more than 100,000 people, yet has zero gun stores? That sounds like a problem in and of itself. 

Even if the city has restrictive zoning laws in place, though, the Ninth Circuit has made it incredibly difficult to sue over ordinances that are intended to limit the number of gun shops in any particular city. In Teixeira v. County of Alameda, decided back in 2017, an en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit held that the Second Amendment does not protect the right to sell firearms even though it protects the right to acquire them. 

Alameda County had enacted a zoning ordinance that blocked any new gun shops from opening within its borders while grandfathering in existing FFLs. Because there were about 10 gun shops already operating in Alameda County, the Ninth Circuit concluded that the Second Amendment rights of residents were not being meaningfully constrained. 

Teixeira was a terrible decision that has had a big impact on California gun laws. Since the ruling nine years ago, lawmakers have imposed bans on gun sales on all state property in an attempt to shutter gun shows, while other localities have imposed moratoriums on new gun stores opening within their communities. 

Inglewood’s repeal of its “1-in-30” law is long overdue, but it’s also fairly symbolic given the lack of gun stores operating inside the city limits. Still, at least the city is doing the right thing, unlike the city of Los Angeles. In its first reply to the Lopez complaint, L.A. denied that the plaintiffs have standing to sue over the gun rationing law and demanded a jury trial, so Los Angeles is apparently willing to defend the indefensible rather than bring its ordinances in line with the Ninth Circuit’s decision.

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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