BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation today filed a federal lawsuit in California challenging the state’s 10-day waiting period for the purchase of firearms on Second Amendment grounds.
The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of California. SAF is joined by the North County Shooting Center, San Diego County Gun Owners PAC, California Gun Rights Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, PWGG LLP, John Phillips, Alisha Curtin, Dakota Adelphia, Michael Schwartz, Darin Prince and Claire Richards. They are represented by attorneys Bradley A. Benbrook and Stephen M. Duvernay at the Benbrook Law Group in Sacramento. The defendants are Attorney General Rob Bonta and Allison Mendoza, Director of the California Department of Justice Bureau of Firearms, in their official duties. The case is known as Richards vs. Bonta.
“A right delayed is a right denied,” said SAF Founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “There is nothing in the Second Amendment about waiting more than a week to exercise the right to keep and bear arms. California’s waiting period relegates the Second Amendment to the status of a government-regulated privilege, in direct conflict with the US Supreme Court, which stated in its 2008 Heller ruling that the Second Amendment is not a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other guarantees of the Bill of Rights.”
SAF CEO Adam Kraut noted that the Golden State’s waiting period restriction “is not analogous to any constitutionally relevant history and tradition of firearms regulation.”
“Where this really gets silly,” observed Kraut, who is a practicing attorney, “is when the waiting period restriction even applies to a gun buyer who already owns other firearms. Not to mention, those looking to purchase a firearm for protection right away can’t afford to wait ten days. Long story short, the state’s ten-day waiting period should be declared unconstitutional and prohibited, which is the purpose of our lawsuit. We are asking the court for precautionary and declaratory measures.”
“There is a Fourteenth Amendment aspect to this case,” Gottlieb added. “The state grossly discriminates against average citizens by allowing exemptions to nearly two dozen categories of favored individuals who can take possession of firearms without having to endure delay, which violates the Equal Protection clause. We hope to end this practice.”
The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt legal action, research, publishing, and education group focusing on the constitutional right and inheritance to own and own guns. fire privately. Founded in 1974, the Foundation has grown to more than 720,000 members and supporters and runs many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.