Court rules California’s COVID-19 shutdown of gun stores violated Second Amendment

Two California counties were found to have violated the Constitution’s Second Amendment when gun and ammunition stores were deemed nonessential and ordered to shut down in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that the right to bear arms made gun and ammunition stores essential.

The Second Amendment “means nothing if the government can prohibit all persons from acquiring any firearm or ammunition,” Judge Lawrence VanDyke wrote in the decision. “But that’s what happened in this case.”

The ruling overturns lower court decisions in separate cases against Los Angeles and Ventura counties.