Federal appeals court upholds California law banning gun shows at county fairs
SAN FRANCISCO– A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld California’s ban on gun shows at county fairs and other public properties, ruling that the laws do not violate the rights of firearms sellers or buyers.
The 3-0 decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturns a federal judge’s October ruling that blocked the laws.
The two measures were both authored by Democratic Senator Dave Min. The first, which took effect in January 2022, banned gun shows at the Orange County Fair, and the other, which went into effect last year, extended the ban to county fairgrounds on state land.
In his ruling last fall, U.S. District Judge Mark Holcomb wrote that the state is violating the rights of sellers and potential buyers by banning transactions for firearms that can be purchased at any gun store. He said legal gun sales involve commercial speech that is protected by the First Amendment.
But the appeals court decided that the laws only prohibit sales contracts on public property — not discussions, advertisements or other statements about firearms. The bans “do not directly or inevitably restrict any expressive activity,” Judge Richard Clifton wrote in Tuesday’s ruling.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who defended the laws in court, applauded the decision.
“Guns should not be sold on state property, it’s as simple as that,” Bonta said in a statement. “This is another victory in the fight against gun violence in our state and country.”
Gun shows attract thousands of potential buyers to local fairs. Under a separate state law, which is not challenged in this case, the actual purchase of a firearm at a gun show is completed at a licensed gun store after a 10-day waiting period and a background check, Clifton noted.
Gun control groups have maintained that the shows pose dangers, making the weapons attractive to children and allowing “straw purchases” for people who are not eligible to own firearms.
The suit was filed by a gun show company, B&L Productions, which also argued that the ban on carnival sales violated the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. The appeals court disagreed, noting that there were six licensed firearms dealers in the same zip code as the Orange County Fairgrounds, the subject of Min’s 2022 law.
Min said reinstating the laws will make Californians safer.
“I hope that in my lifetime we will return to a society where people’s lives are valued more than guns, and where incidents of gun violence are rare and shocking rather than commonplace as they are today,” Min said in a statement on Tuesday.
The ruling will be appealed, said attorney Chuck Michel, president of the California Rifle & Pistol Association, the state affiliate of the National Rifle Association.
“CRPA will continue to protect the despised gun culture and fight back against an overreaching government that seeks to restrict unfavorable fundamental rights and discriminate against certain groups of people on state-owned assets,” Michel said in a statement to the US government. San Francisco Chronicle.