From Judge Ryan Nelson's opinion this morning in Jones v. Bonta, joined by Judge Kenneth Lee and in part (only as to the upholding of the hunting license requirement) by District Judge Sidney Stein (S.D.N.Y.):
California has restricted the sale of most firearms to anyone under 21. Plaintiffs challenged the bans on long guns and semiautomatic centerfire rifles under the Second Amendment. The district court declined to issue a preliminary injunction.
We hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to enjoin the requirement that young adults obtain a hunting license to purchase a long gun. But the district court erred in not enjoining an almost total ban on semiautomatic centerfire rifles. First, the Second Amendment protects the right of young adults to keep and bear arms, which includes the right to purchase them. The district court reasoned otherwise and held that the laws did not burden Second Amendment rights at all: that was legal error.
Second, the district court properly applied intermediate scrutiny to the long gun hunting license regulation and did not abuse its discretion in finding it likely to survive. But third, the district court erred by applying intermediate scrutiny, rather than strict scrutiny, to the semiautomatic centerfire rifle ban. And even under intermediate scrutiny, this ban likely violates the Second Amendment because it fails the "reasonable fit" test. Finally, the district court also abused its discretion in finding that Plaintiffs would not likely be irreparably harmed. We thus affirm the district court's denial of an injunction as to the long gun regulation, reverse its denial of an injunction as to the semiautomatic centerfire rifle ban, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Judge Lee also wrote a separate concurrence, "to highlight how California's legal position has no logical stopping point and would ultimately erode fundamental rights enumerated in our Constitution":
