Officials may appeal to the state Supreme Court, but victory there is far from certain.
At issue is Safari Club International v. Bonta. In 2022, the legislature passed and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a measure into law banning what the state deemed as firearm advertising targeting minors.
But the statute was so overly broad that it likely would prohibit hunter safety courses aimed at young people.
Last October, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the state law was unconstitutional. But California’s anti-gun lobby was hardly satisfied and appealed to the full Ninth Circuit.
On Tuesday, its response was received. By a large margin the judges rejected taking on the case for appeal. And not a single jurist attempted to have the court vote on the California petition for the case to be reheard.
An alliance of organizations led by Safari Club International sued the state over the law. In a sweeping statute, it attempted to wipe away any advertising that is “designed, intended or reasonably appears to be attractive to minors.”
Of course, the plaintiffs targeted the law citing protections granted by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The initial result was not promising.
In Jan. 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California sided with the state and refused to issue an injunction against the law. This signaled victory to anti-gun forces, but that was only temporary.
Now it appears that the law is on life support. Without Supreme Court intervention, the injunction granted by the three-judge panel will hold, and the state will be forced to back down.
