US

California’s Democrat AG Rob Bonta Desperately Wants Court – And You – To Believe Suppressors Aren’t ‘Arms’

Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta speaks during a Tuesday appearance on CNBC's Squawk Box.

Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office claimed in a letter sent to a federal appeals court that lawyers challenging the state’s ban on suppressors overread a recent Supreme Court decision.

The high court ruled in Wolford v. Lopez that Hawaii’s law requiring private property owners who wished to allow concealed carry on the premises to clearly post signs that carrying guns was allowed was unconstitutional. In a July 1 letter citing the case sent to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, attorney for Gary Sanchez, the plaintiff, argued that Wolford v. Lopez defined suppressors as arms, prompting the response from Bonta’s office.

“Wolford conducted a historical analysis to evaluate restrictions on carrying handguns in public for self-defense,” Bonta’s office claimed. “Wolford did not evaluate what accessories, if any, fall within the Second Amendment’s plain text or otherwise ‘abrogate[]’ decisions conducting that analysis. This case, by contrast, concerns restrictions on firearm silencers.”

 The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled on June 18 in Comeaux v. United States that suppressors fall under the category of “arms” and are protected under the Second Amendment while upholding a conviction of a person who challenged the National Firearms Act on Second Amendment grounds. The Fifth Circuit upheld Comeaux’s because it determined the National Firearms Act of 1934 operates similarly to a “shall issue” system for administering applications for concealed carry permits.

“The Court did not address the central question in this case—whether possession of a silencer (a firearm accessory) is covered by the Second Amendment’s plain text, either as an ‘Arm’ itself or an item necessary to the functioning of a firearm,” Bonta’s office claimed. “Nothing in Wolford remotely supports an argument that silencers are either an arm or a necessary component of a firearm. Wolford thus did not ‘effectively overrule’ the circuit precedent that controls this case.”

Should the Ninth Circuit accept the arguments from Bonta’s office, a “circuit split” would occur. The Supreme Court tends to be more likely to hear cases where appellate courts for different circuits have issued different rulings, to resolve the disagreement among the lower courts.

“Wolford leaves the State’s arguments in tatters,” Second Amendment Foundation Director of Legal Research and Education Konstadinos Moros told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “A suppressed firearm is obviously an ‘arm’ under the Second Amendment, and while a suppressor may not be strictly necessary for a gun to fire, neither are most common parts of a firearm. The Second Amendment is not a limited right that merely protects a right to own some sort of gun. It is an expansive right that declared it ‘shall not be infringed.’”

Bonta did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.