Yesterday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held oral arguments in two cases challenging California AB 2571 which bans the “marketing” of guns to minors. We have covered this awful law before and how it impacted youth shooting sports in California. The pretext for this law was Uvalde; that shining example of law enforcement incompetence was leveraged to go after the rights of citizens to keep and bear arms because of pure spite.

The two cases – Safari Club Int’l v. Bonta, and Junior Sports Magazines Inc. v. Bonta – ran into some trouble yesterday at during oral arguments:

Judge VanDyke asks California if it would be constitutional for the state to ban car advertisements that are considered attractive to minors. California says maybe. https://t.co/l93o92hRD9

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) June 28, 2023

The logical extension of going after the First Amendment in the context of guns is that you hollow out the First Amendment in its entirety. There’s no getting around that; no ifs, no buts. When pressed by Judge Lawrence VanDyke, the State kept dodging and evading:

The judges keep asking California questions about hypothetical gun advertisements (to ask if the law would ban them). The state avoids giving a concrete answer.

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) June 28, 2023

The State then made a false comparison to tobacco and alcohol ads to minors. They missed the memo somewhere that arms are constitutionally protected, and it is the right of Americans to introduce them safely to their children as they have done so since the Founding. I know several older Americans who got their first guns before their age was in the double digits.

Judge VanDyke had another astute observation:

Judge VanDyke says bans on tobacco and alcohol ads to minors are a poor comparison to California's ban on firearm ads because it's not gun company advertising that's causing demand among minors, it's movies and video games.

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) June 28, 2023

I can vouch for this. I have a young extended family member who knows a lot about various guns and optics. I was surprised he knew so much because he has never touched a gun before. It turns out he got all that information from video games, not from reading magazines or going to the gun range with his parents (who themselves have never touched a gun before).

Judge VanDyke also called out the State for its assumption that minors will go out and buy guns, saying it, “doesn’t pass the straight face test.”

Judge VanDyke tells California that he's struggling with the idea that a minor will go out and buy a gun illegally because they saw a gun ad in a magazine. He says it "doesn't pass the straight face test"

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) June 28, 2023

Finally, California got humiliated again with a question that exposed their hypocrisy:

Judge Lee asks California if the state could ban advertisements that are attractive to minors and glorify violence (such as for movies or video games). CA says it isn't sure because movies/video games are protected by the 1A. VanDyke then notes that guns are protected by the 2A.

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) June 28, 2023

California, home to Hollywood, will not go against them. They are a massive industry there and a source of jobs and tax revenue. So is Silicon Valley, which makes some very violent video games. Yet, when it comes to guns, California is willing to lop off the First Amendment because the State hates the very notion of gun ownership by the citizenry.

Unfortunately for California, the Bill of Rights is a “take it or leave it” bundled package. They can try all they want to pretend that the Second Amendment doesn’t exist or undermine it in a thousand ways, but it is still there. 

The gun grabbers’ strategy has morphed well beyond releasing a swarm of legislative and regulatory mosquitoes on gun owning Americans. They have started an all-out war, going to Hollywood, the media, the Ivory Tower, and now, core youth shooting sports itself.

Their goal is to nip gun ownership in the literal bud, by depriving the educational opportunities that will spread knowledge and dispel the fear of firearms in the next generation of American voters. They know that the more children know and get comfortable with guns, the less likely they will be to fear guns and uncritically consume gun control propaganda. Gun grabbers’ concern is not gun safety, but killing gun ownership.

Let’s hope that the panel of the Ninth Circuit gives California their well-deserved comeuppance and sets them back in their efforts to subvert the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Editors note: For another inside look at Wednesday’s oral arguments, check out Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co later today, where we’ll be speaking with attorney Anna Barvir of Michel & Associates, who has worked extensively on the Junior Sports Magazine v. Bonta litigation.