Federal Judge: California Ammunition Background Checks Violate Constitution

United States District Court Judge Roger T. Benitez issued a decision Tuesday blocking enforcement of California’s background check requirement for ammunition purchases.

California law requires that would-be ammunition purchasers submit to a background check like the check one undergoes to purchase a firearm.

The law implementing the ammunition background checks came from Senate Bill 1235, which usurped a permit-to-purchase scenario passed by California voters in 2016. The court challenge was directed toward SB 1235 and its chief enforcer, California Attorney General Rob Bonta.

Benitez weighed the background check requirement in light of the Supreme Court’s Bruen (2023) decision and found it unconstitutional.

He wrote, “The ammunition background checks laws have no historical pedigree and operate in such a way that they violate the Second Amendment right of citizens to keep and bear arms.”

Plaintiffs also targeted California’s law against purchasing ammunition in other states and bringing it back to California. Benitez also decided in plaintiff’s favor concerning the anti-importation law.

Benitez subsequently barred AG Bonta and any of his agents from enforcing the ammunition background check requirement or the anti-importation law.

The case is Rhodes v. Bonta 18-cv-802 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a Turning Point USA Ambassador, and a pro-staffer for Pulsar Night Vision. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..