California's "one-gun-a-month" law

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously struck down California's "one-gun-a-month" law in a 3-0 ruling in the case of Nguyen v. Bonta on June 20, 2025. 
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously struck down California's "one-gun-a-month" law in a 3-0 ruling in the case of Nguyen v. Bonta on June 20, 2025.The three judges on the panel were:

• U.S. Circuit Judge Danielle Forrest (a Donald Trump appointee) who wrote the majority opinion.
• U.S. Circuit Judge Bridget Bade (another Trump appointee) who signed the ruling.
• U.S. Circuit Judge John Owens (a Barack Obama appointee) who issued a concurring opinion.

The primary reasons for the ruling were based on the Supreme Court's 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n, Inc. v. Bruen, which established a "text-and-history" test for evaluating Second Amendment

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:21):
Welcome back to the deep dive. Today, we're jumping into
a really significant legal ruling out of California, Big one.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Yeah, definitely making ways.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Our goal here is simple break down how this state
law got challenged. You know what the court's decided and
importantly what it means for you.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
And the headline news. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
just issued a unanimous decision. This was June twentieth, twenty
twenty five. They struck down California's one gun a month law,
said it's unconstitutional.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Okay, unanimous, that's striking. Let's dig into the law itself. First,
California's one gun a month rule, What exactly was it
and how did it evolve?

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Sure, so, it's officially Penal Code section two seventy five
three five actually started way back in nineteen ninety nine.
But back then it was just for handgunshret Yeah. Then
fast forward to twenty twenty four and they expanded it
to cover all firearms. The state's stated goal was, you know,
primarily about stopping straw purchases, straw.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Purchases where someone buys a gun for someone else who
can't legally own one, exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
And you know, the broader aim was reducing gun violence overall.
That was the justification.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Makes sense on the surface. But then came Bruin, the
twenty twenty two Supreme Court decision. How did that case
just completely change the game for laws like this one?

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Oh, dramatically, Bruin was a bomb show. Really, it essentially
paused out the al the way courts looked at gun laws,
that sort of balancing test between public safety and second
amend right.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Right, the balancing test is gone.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
Gone, replaced by a much stricter standard. Yeah, text, history
and tradition. Now, for a gun law to be constitutional,
the government's to show it's consistent with the nation's well
historical tradition of firearm regulation. It needs a historical analog.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Basically, a historical analog, not just a good reason, but
actual history backing it up.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Precisely good intentions aren't enough anymore. The type of regulation
has to have roots.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
And that brings us to the lawsuit Gooyan v. Bonta
started back in December twenty twenty individuals groups like saf FPC.
They argue this one gun a month law violated the
Second Amendment under this new framework.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Right, well, initially under the old framework, but Bruin came
down while it was pending and really shaped the final
arguments and the court's analysis.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
H Okay, So how did the Ninth Circuit apply Bruin here?
What was their reasoning for saying unconstitutional?

Speaker 3 (02:39):
Well, first off, the panel was unanimous, like we said,
affirming the lower court. They stated pretty clearly that the
Second Amendment protects the right to possess multiple.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Firearms multiple They focused on the plural arms.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
They did, points right to it and said the Amendment
protects against meaningful constraints on actually acquiring those arms.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Okay, so protects getting more than one gun. And then
the history part, the analog, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
That was the real kicker. The court said California couldn't
point to any relevant historical analog for a law limiting
how many firearms someone could buy in a specific timeframe.
They said the state couldn't even find a historical cousin.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
No cousin huh. So the state's arguments about things like
old gunpowder storage laws didn't fly.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
No, the court shut those down. So the purpose was
totally different. Those laws were about safe storage, preventing fires,
things like that, not about limiting the act of acquiring
firearms on a schedule.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
And the Court also used this phrase temporal metering of rights.
That sounds pretty.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
Stark, it really does, and they strongly rejected that idea.
They used some powerful analogies, basically asking, you know, could
the government limit your free speech to one protest a month, wow?
Or limit your freedom of religion to one service a month.
Their coint was that the delay, the metering itself, was
the core of the law. Unlike say, a background check.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Delay, right, a background check delay has a specific purpose verification.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Exactly an administrative function. Here, the Ninth Circuit said, the
time limit was the regulation and that kind of metering
of a fundamental right just isn't constitutional without historical precedent.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Okay, so let's get practical. What does this mean right
now for people in California and maybe for other states?

Speaker 3 (04:21):
Immediately, law abiding citizens in California can now purchase more
than one firearm, handgun, or long gun within a thirty
day period. That restriction is gone, and the ripple effect.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Well, this ruling definitely puts similar laws in other states,
and there aren't many. These were already outliers on very
shaky ground. They'll face the same Bruin challenge. Show us
the historical analog, and they likely won't find one either.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
I remember reading about a California bill AB ten seventy
eight that tried to maybe change the limit to three
guns a month instead of one. Does this ruling kill
that idea too?

Speaker 2 (04:56):
It certainly seems to. Jud j Owens wrote a concurrence
making it clear that while this specific law failed, the
ruling doesn't stop states from using other historically supported methods
to combat things like straw purchasing. But the core reasoning
against temporal metering arbitrarily limiting the number within a time
period applies whether the number is one or three or ten.

(05:17):
Without historical backing for that kind of limit, it seems
any version of it is likely unconstitutional under Bruin and
this Ninth Circuit ruling.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
So wrapping this up, the main takeaway seems pretty clear,
the Second Amendment, as interpreted through Bruin protects acquiring multiple firearms,
and states trying to regulate that face a very high
historical bar. That's it, and it leads us to the
big question, maybe something for you to think about, how
will states respond if these kinds of limits are off
the table. What historically grounded approaches might they explore or

(05:47):
maybe rediscover to address public safety concerns while respecting second
moment rights as the courts now define them. It's a
new landscape.