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District Judge Halts California’s Ammunition Background Checks

AWR Hawkinsby AWR Hawkins

A district judge issued a ruling Thursday, granting a preliminary injunction blocking California’s requirement for background checks on ammunition purchases.

The ruling came in Rhode v. Becerra, in the United States District Court, Southern District of California. Olympian Kim Rhode filed the NRA-supported case April 26, 2018, against California’s requirement that ammunition purchasers pass a point-of-sale background check. The case also focused on California’s ban against buying ammunition from any outlet other that in-state dealers who are state-approved ammo vendors.

Judge Roger T. Benitez wrote:

Law-abiding citizens are imbued with the unalienable right to keep and bear firearms along with the ammunition to make their firearms work. That a majority today may wish it were otherwise, does not change the Constitutional right. It never has. California has tried its unprecedented experiment. The casualties suffered by law abiding citizens have been counted.

He observed, “The background check requirement for all ammunition purchases in California and the anti-importation provisions that prohibit direct sales to residents often effect a complete statutory barrier to the lawful purchase of ammunition.”

Benitez noted: “It is not the Court’s role to dictate to a state how it should go about attempting to accomplish its goal. If the state objective is to make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for its law-abiding citizens to purchase protected ammunition, then this law appears to be well-drafted.”

He ruled, “The Court enjoins the State of California from enforcing the ammunition sales background check provisions.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at [email protected]. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

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