By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Two different federal appeals courts have announced they will hear oral arguments in separate cases involving the Second Amendment Foundation, one challenging California’s one-gun-a-month restriction, and the other challenging the “Final Rule” on pistol braces, filed in Texas.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals announced earlier this week that it has set oral arguments for Aug. 14 in a case known as Nguyen v. Bonta. This is the case in California, filed originally in December 2020, in which SAF and its partners initially won a summary judgment at the district court level. California appealed to the 9th Circuit.
SAF is joined in this case by the Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc., San Diego County Gun Owners PAC, North County Shooting Center, Inc., PWGG, L.P., a limited partnership, and six private citizens including Michelle Nguyen, for whom the case is named. They are represented by attorney Raymond M. DiGuiseppe of Southport, NC.
The Nguyen case has attracted at least four amicus briefs supporting SAF’s arguments that one-gun-per-month limitations are unconstitutional. There is one from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, another from the National Rifle Association, a third submitted by the California Rifle & Pistol Association, Second Amendment Law Center and Operation Blazing Sword-Pink Pistols, and a fourth provided by a coalition including Gun Owners of America, Gun Owners of California, the Tennessee Firearms Association, Tennessee Firearms Foundation, Virginia Citizens Defense League, Virginia Citizens Defense Foundation, Heller Foundation, America’s Future, Inc., the U.S. Constitutional Rights Legal Defense Fund and the Conservative Legal Defense and Education Fund.
“Clearly,” observed SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut, “California’s OGM statute is an unlawful restriction on the rights of honest citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights regardless of dates on the calendar. Such a limitation on a constitutional right must not be allowed to stand.”
“We are gratified by the number of amicus briefs filed in support of our case, and the number of participants,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “It is both humbling and encouraging to see so many of our colleague organizations stepping forward in this case, which strikes at the very heart of a restrictive, and unconstitutional, gun control scheme.”
In the second legal action, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments during the week of Aug. 5 in the case of SAF v. ATF. This case challenges the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ “Final Rule” regarding arm braces for pistols. This case was filed in February 2023 and last August, SAF won, in part, a preliminary injunction in the case when a court panel decided 2-1 the rule was “likely illegal” because the government had violated the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) by adopting the rule without meaningful opportunity for public comment.
SAF is joined by Rainier Arms, LLC and two private citizens, Samuel Walley and William Green. They are represented by attorney Chad Flores at Flores Law in Houston.
“The ATF’s ‘Final Rule’ is a complete reversal of previous policy, and it was adopted in violation of APA guidelines.” Kraut said. “We certainly expect to prevail.”
