SAF Joins Amicus Brief Challenging California Ammo Check

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SAF Joins Amicus Brief Challenging California Ammo Check
Olympic shooter Kim Rhode. (Photo: LA Times)

BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation has joined four other gun rights organizations in an amicus brief supporting Olympic gold medalist Kim Rhode in her challenge of California’s onerous background check requirement to purchase ammunition.

SAF is joined by the Firearms Policy Coalition, Firearms Policy Foundation, California Gun Rights Foundation and the Madison Society Foundation. They are represented by attorney Joseph G.S. Greenlee. The case is known as Rhode v. Becerra.

Rhode, a world-renowned competitive shooter, is a California resident. She quickly challenged the California ammunition requirement, the first such background check mandate in the country, when it was adopted. According to the amicus brief, this scheme is “complex, deficient, and ineffective.” It places a burden on every law-abiding gun owner in the state and often requires people to make two trips to the store just to purchase ammunition, and it still refuses about 16 percent of lawful purchases.

“California has some of the strictest, and over-bearing, draconian gun control laws in the nation,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “This ammunition background check requirement represents the foolishness of state gun laws at their worst.

“As we note in the brief,” he continued, “the state has offered no evidence that this background check requirement even works to prevent violent crimes involving firearms. What the law does accomplish is to inconvenience good citizens such as Kim Rhode, for whom competitive shooting is not just a hobby, but a vocation. It penalizes Kim and many other Californians who have committed no crime.”

Gottlieb said this case is important because the state’s defense of the ammunition background check is not supported by the facts, or in this case, lack of facts.

“There is simply no evidence that a background check requirement on ammunition has, or ever will, prevent a single crime involving a firearm, while placing a burden on thousands of California citizens by preventing them from buying ammunition and thus exercising their constitutional rights,” he said.

About SAF

The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms.  Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control. 

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  • OldGuy August 14, 2020, 1:31 pm

    When looking forward at the November 03, 2020 Presidential Election two intermingled issues rise to the top, Gun Control Legislation and the repeal of Our Second Amendment Rights.

    Looking at the Democrat candidates, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (financially backed by Michael Bloomberg and George Soros) have sworn to confiscate guns as their waiting in-the-eaves Gun Czar Beto O’Rourke will happily be tasked to get to work as soon as they are elected.

    Legal or not ultimately, is this how we want to spend the resources of the next 4-years on a national level? Just look at what the Democrats have created in California since July 01, 2018 with the new ammunition law forcing background checks on ammunition and causing ammunition shortages along with the resulting higher ammunition prices. Is this what we truly want for the future of our country, to abandon our Constitution and its Bill of Rights in-lieu of substituting in NATO doctrine instead?

    If California is the Democrat’s model for a new society, the rest of the nation should be scared absolutely shitless. In California we have had far too many decades of Democrat policies and we have more homeless people than any other state, we have sanctuary cities, we have over 50,000 inmate prisoners released from County Jails and State Prisons since the 03-19-2020 State shutdown due to Covid-19, and we have the most absurdly strict gun control laws in the nation. Even absurd gun control legislation has a wearing-down-effect on the citizenry while the arguments are delayed by circuit court appeals. We are still waiting for magazines above 10-rounds which are considered standard capacity magazines by most firearm manufacturers to be ruled on as well as the 2016 ammunition background check law. In California a law-abiding-citizen cannot purchase and possess more than 1-handgun within a 30-day period and soon the same will apply to rifles and shotguns also. We have a DOJ Roster of approved handguns which serves as a menu of what we are allowed to order from; kind of like a ordering from a vegan menu when all you are hungry for is a big juicy Angus-Beef burger.

    The only obstacle to the beat the Democrats strategy of disarming America is to re-elect Donald Trump and Mike Pence on Tuesday, November 03, 2020.

    Isn’t it amazing the resources which China has employed to keep the Republicans from winning in 2020?

  • Edward Nichols August 14, 2020, 8:53 am

    Living in California, it seems the liberals that run this state have sold it to the chineese who with their 50 year plan would like nothing more than an unarmed west coast. Being a firearm owner, I wonder when they will implement the law where I have to sew a bullseye patch on all my clothing so I can get beat down by all the gun hating “normal” people?

  • Jaque August 11, 2020, 10:24 am

    Why hasn’t the NRA joined this case?

    • WTFlacky August 14, 2020, 4:49 am

      The NRA is never involved in the major winning lawsuits. It is ALWAYS the SAF. The NRA just takes the credit. They don’t like to shell out the cash.

      • Paul Hillar August 14, 2020, 11:27 am

        You are full of crap and obviously not a member! When was the last time you got involved to help? We put out over 2 million a year just in CA. for litigation. Get your facts straight before you talk about things you don’t know anything about!

        • CL59 August 15, 2020, 10:01 pm

          Flacky. As a life member I recommend you check your facts before mouthing off!

      • DELCO November 6, 2020, 6:58 pm

        Your a clown. Name a few cases, or go back to filling in those fake mail in ballots. Your a mess WTFLACKY

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