Federal lawsuit by FPC argues that California’s handgun “Roster” ban and microstamping requirements are unconstitutional. This case also seeks to strike down the State’s self-manufacturing and CNC machine bans, as well as unconstitutional and chilling fee and liability shifting against gun rights advocates enacted by California as retribution for Texas’s SB 8 abortion laws.

SAN DIEGO, CA (September 1, 2022) – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced the filing of an amended complaint in Renna v. Bonta, its lawsuit challenging California’s handgun “roster” ban laws, its ban on self-manufacturing handguns, and provisions in SB-1327 that are designed to suppress and chill legitimate challenges to firearms regulations. The Complaint, along with other fillings in this case, can be viewed at FPCLaw.org.

“Millions of handguns prohibited for sale to the State’s law-abiding citizens are commonly possessed and used for self-defense and other lawful purposes in the vast majority of states, securing their protection from such regulation,” argues the Complaint. “In the approximately 400-year history of the colonies and later the United States, no regulations at all like the Handgun Ban appeared until recently in only a few states. That is hardly a historical tradition of such regulation.”

The Complaint also challenges California’s ban on self-manufacturing handguns and the CNC machines commonly used in that process, saying that “[n]othing in the ‘Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation’ supports the heavy-handed restrictions on the self-manufacture or assembly of constitutionally protected arms.”

Finally, the Complaint challenges the fee and liability-shifting provisions in SB-1327, which California enacted as retribution for Texas’s SB 8 abortion law: “By threatening not only the individual litigants with the strict liability for raising legitimate challenges to firearms regulations but also any attorney and any associated law firm, this law ‘substantially interferes’ with the litigants’ due process rights.”

“California politicians have illustrated time and again their disdain for the fundamental rights of their constituents,” said FPC Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack. “In adopting the abhorrent legal mechanisms from a Texas law that the same California legislators themselves have publicly decried as unconstitutional, they have once again thumbed their collective nose at the constitution and the peaceable people of California.”

Individuals who would like to Join the FPC Grassroots Army and support important pro-rights lawsuits and programs can sign up at JoinFPC.org. Individuals and organizations wanting to support charitable efforts in support of the restoration of Second Amendment and other natural rights can also make a tax-deductible donation to the FPC Action Foundation. For more on FPC’s lawsuits and other pro-Second Amendment initiatives, visit FPCLegal.org and follow FPC on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube. 

Firearms Policy Coalition (firearmspolicy.org), a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization, exists to create a world of maximal human liberty, defend constitutional rights, advance individual liberty, and restore freedom. FPC’s efforts are focused on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and adjacent issues including freedom of speech, due process, unlawful searches and seizures, separation of powers, asset forfeitures, privacy, encryption, and limited government. The FPC team are next-generation advocates working to achieve the Organization’s strategic objectives through litigation, research, scholarly publications, amicus briefing, legislative and regulatory action, grassroots activism, education, outreach, and other programs.

FPC Law (FPCLaw.org) is the nation’s first and largest public interest legal team focused on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and the leader in the Second Amendment litigation and research space.