The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals announced Monday that an 11-judge panel will hear a San Diego case challenging a voter-approved California law that requires a background check for nearly all purchases of firearm ammunition.
A San Diego federal judge has twice found that the law is unconstitutional, ruling that it infringes on the Second Amendment rights of Californians, and a three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit affirmed that ruling in a 2-1 opinion in July.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta subsequently petitioned the 9th Circuit to rehear the case en banc, and on Monday the 9th Circuit announced that a majority of active judges had voted to have the case reheard by a larger 11-judge en banc panel.
In addition to requiring background checks for most ammunition purchases, the law in question also bans Californians from bringing home ammunition that they purchase out of state.
While Bonta has argued the law was passed by voters in response to mass shootings and is intended to ensure ammunition is kept out of the hands of people not legally allowed to purchase it, the individuals and Second Amendment rights groups who challenged the law in San Diego federal court argued that it illegally infringes on their constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
Monday’s announcement that the case will be heard en banc was the latest twist in a case that was filed in 2018.
San Diego-based U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez first struck down the law as unconstitutional in 2020. California appealed that ruling to the 9th Circuit, but in 2022, before the 9th Circuit had ruled on that appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in a New York gun case that upended Second Amendment case law.
After that Supreme Court ruling, which holds that modern gun laws must be “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,” the 9th Circuit sent the case back to Benitez to be relitigated under the high court’s new framework.
That’s how Benitez came to rule last year, for a second time, that the law was unconstitutional. “A sweeping background check requirement imposed every time a citizen needs to buy ammunition is an outlier that our ancestors would have never accepted for a citizen,” Benitez wrote in part.
California again appealed the ruling, then asked for the larger 9th Circuit hearing after the three-judge panel sided 2-1 with Benitez in July.
That opinion by the three-judge panel is now vacated, according to an order issued Monday by 9th Circuit Chief Judge Mary Murguia. It’s not yet known which 11 judges will hear the case, but oral arguments will be held in March.