KQED: Federal Court Upholds California's Ban on Gun Sales on State Property
By Nigel Duara
You can talk about guns at California state fairgrounds. You can advertise guns there, too. You can even, in the words of a gun rights group, host “a celebration of America’s gun culture.”
What you cannot do, according to a ruling on Tuesday by a three-judge panel on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, is buy or sell a firearm on property owned by the state.
The ruling upholds California’s ban on gun sales on state property, dismissing a challenge from gun show operator Crossroads of the West. The judges distinguished between the free speech rights of gun enthusiasts on public property and the sales that often take place at gun shows.
California gun laws “prohibit accepting an offer to sell firearms or ammunition on state property,” the panel ruled.
Crossroads of the West first sued in 2018 when one of California’s agricultural district associations barred gun shows at Del Mar Fairgrounds in San Diego County. In 2021, a new state law also barred gun sales at the state fairgrounds in Orange County, which inspired another Crossroads lawsuit.
The cases were consolidated, and as they wound their way through the courts, California passed a 2022 law barring all gun sales on state property.
In the meantime, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a major gun case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which tossed out New York state regulations on who can carry a gun in public and threw California’s restrictive gun laws into chaos. Gov. Gavin Newsom has since proposed a federal constitutional amendment restricting gun ownership.
The new ruling ends an injunction from a lower court that blocked the restriction on gun sales at fairgrounds.
“The restoration of my ban on gun shows on state properties — including most of the county fairgrounds sites that are owned by the state — will make us all safer,” said state Sen. Dave Min, an Irvine Democrat who advocates for limits on gun sales.