Massive CRPA Litigation Recap: What Californians Must Know

Another chapter in the saga of 2025 recap videos, as we visit CRPA litigation throughout the year. We've got a lot of cases before the year even started. We filed a couple more in 2025. Let's go ahead and discuss all the movement that we saw with all the different lawsuits. Let's talk about it.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the channel. Today, we have arrived at the final chapter of the 2025 recap saga, that of course is with the litigation throughout the year that we have seen, uh, come from CRPA. To walk us through that today, we have brought back the president of CRPA, that is Chuck Michel. Chuck, thanks for being on with us today.

>> Always a pleasure, guys. Thanks for having me and season greetings. Merry Christmas.

>> Absolutely. And thank you for that. Uh, it hopefully it was a grand Christmas for everybody out there. Looking forward to the new year as well. And guys, uh, please be sure to like, share, and subscribe to these videos. It really helps get the information out there as far and wide as possible. What I'm really hoping is that this just continues to create a clearer picture of the path we have set out for us in 2026, as we look forward to the new year here. I think there is a lot to be optimistic about, uh, and that's going to be highlighted here.

So, Chuck, uh, let's go ahead and just start with, uh, a couple of these lawsuits that were actually filed, uh, in the year 2025. I know that we have a lot of lawsuits that have been making its way through the federal district court, the Ninth Circuit, and even SCOTUS. We'll touch on those in a couple of minutes, but, uh, one that was filed this year is the Blank, uh, the Blank v. Santa Clara, uh, CCW lawsuit. Of course, this one has implications of the LA lawsuit that we filed. But, uh, just to refresh us here, can you go ahead and let us know what the challenge was here in Blank v. Santa Clara and why it's so important to do it there?

>> Short answer is, it's a challenge to their fees to get a, uh, to apply for, uh, a CCW. They're charging $2,000 just to submit an application. And that's part of an ongoing, uh, strategy of anti-gun owner jurisdictions to try and drag their feet and make it take too long. That was the LA County Sheriff case, or charged too much. And that's the Santa Clara. And it was the Lever case, too, which we, they, they, uh, lowered their fees and, and paid us some of our attorney's fees back in that one. So, Blank is the latest challenge to, uh, an excessive fee to, to try and get a concealed firearm permit. It's all part of the CCW Reckoning Project that the CRPA has been launched since has launched ever since the Bruin decision came down to force all these jurisdictions to start issuing CCWs quickly and inexpensively.

Well, you, you've got this, you've got this thing where we've filed lawsuits before having to do with CCWs. Uh, and the implications of that lawsuit is statewide. What is special about this one? You already have a lawsuit in LA that within that lawsuit is a challenge to the fees down there. Why is it important to file this one in Santa Clara also?

>> Well, the, the Lever, when we originally filed the LA County Sheriff case, it was LA County Sheriff for taking too long, and Laverne for charging too much, and Cal DOJ for not allowing out-of-state peop people, non-resident, uh, folks to apply. We won on the non-residents. So now people from out of state can apply for a CCW. Lever folded basically and and lowered their fees. And we're still working against LA County Sheriff to increase the the speed at which they process applications. And they've already started cutting it down in response to our lawsuit. And that's the lawsuit that the United States Department of Justice has filed a companion lawsuit in, uh, charge alle alleging the same thing against LA County Sheriff. But it's all part of this. Some take too long, some charge too much, some take too long and charge too much. And we have to keep smacking them down every time they, they violate Bruin, which is what they're doing. It can't take forever and you can't charge people out of the market to get a concealed carry license.

>> So, kind of a, uh, leave no stone unturned, uh, method. And, and if you guys have been following along, uh, you will know we've gotten a couple good decisions and maybe we'll, we'll go over that, uh, in just a little bit in the LA lawsuit that we have, uh, with these things. So, Chuck, what about 2026? Uh, where, where do you see this case going forward? What do we have to look forward to, uh, in this new upcoming year?

>> I fully expect that the LA County Sheriff will will speed up the process. There's going to be progress reports that they have to make as they work to do what they need to do to make it faster. Uh, and so I think that case is probably going to settle with them agreeing that they'll meet certain timelines. Uh, and then we'll sue LAPD because they're the ones next taking too long.

>> Well, fair enough. Uh, definitely look forward to that there and potentially more in 2026. Um, what about the, uh, Sanchez v. Bont case, Chuck? I, I know for, for those who, uh, haven't been following along, who maybe didn't catch our video with Anna going into the oral arguments that we just saw for the Sanchez video, uh, this one, at least in my eyes, is kind of long awaited. We've had CRPA members for the last couple of years asking the question, when are we going to dip our toes in this suppressor argument? Well, this year we did, and we kind of did it in an unorthodox fashion. Uh, can you go ahead and explain, uh, what the challenge is here in Sanchez and how CRPA came to be participating in this lawsuit?

>> Well, I believe this is the one where the Ninth Circuit requested some, the guy filed the, the plaintiff filed this lawsuit proper. Am I mixing up these cases?

>> No. Yeah. And so, uh, the, the, the Ninth Circuit asked for, they wanted to get a law firm to represent the guy so that they could make legal arguments better than a than an individual who's not a lawyer can. And so we stepped up and and got involved on behalf of that plaintiff and then CRPA filed the amicus briefs and, uh, got involved to, to try and, you know, the, the issue here is whether or not parts like an, a suppressor or a magazine for that matter are actually covered by the right to keep, the language of the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms. Is a suppressor considered a protective, a protected arm? Is a magazine considered a protected arm as coming under the umbrella of this language of the Second Amendment? And so that's an important question that's being, uh, litigated in the several contexts, including full auto bump stocks, uh, uh, those kinds of things. The thing, you know, for that matter, there's a law that they just passed requiring a background check to buy an, a barrel. I mean, these are all things that, uh, a barrel is, is an arm. You know, all these things are, are protected, and but certain courts are bending over backwards to exclude them from the language of the Second Amendment, and we had to put a stop to it.

>> Right. And if, if they can't be classified as arms, they can be, uh, banned essentially without question by the government. So it does, uh, really become a, a large question that needs to be answered, which, you know, the public outcry has, has really been asking the Supreme Court to continue and zero in on the scope, uh, with which these courts can actually look at these cases, and this kind of falls into that category. Chuck, are there any,

>> We've been looking for a suppressor case for a long time. We were working with the suppressor association. They have lawsuits in several, uh, states challenging suppressor bans. So, California just joined the party.

>> Right. And this one, even in that unorthodox fashion, you know, the federal district court went to dismiss this, and then it got appealed to the Ninth Circuit, where the court said, "Hey, uh, maybe you should, you should get, uh, you know, some more experts in on this," which is how, uh, CRPA, as well as the, uh, law firm of Cooper and Kirk, got involved. Uh, which we just recently saw the ar, the oral arguments at the Ninth Circuit. So I'm sure that is something to look forward to in 2026. But Chuck, I'm a little bit curious. Are there any, you know, benefits or detriments to, uh, coming into a case at the point that CRPA and Cooper and Kirk did? Does that really matter at all, or does really all that matters is, you know, going forward?

>> Well, it shouldn't, it shouldn't matter in this case because this is pretty much purely a legal question. But if, if the, if the lawyers aren't involved in the district court, in the trial court, the first step, uh, the record can be botched. If you don't make a complete record, if you leave a hole in the record for some evidence that the, the appellate court then decides was really important, then you lose because you didn't do it right in the district court and prepare the case for appeal. But in this case, it shouldn't matter. That's because this is pretty much strictly a legal question.

>> Well, fair enough. And, and we did have the oral arguments, uh, just a couple weeks ago. So, where do you see this case going in 2026? I, I know that there's no time frame for an opinion or anything like that. Uh, but where do you see this one stacking up in, in the, in the next year?

>> I think they're going to hold this until they see what happens with Duncan and the Supreme Court. They've got a lot of these cases that are basically on hold because they want to see what the Supreme Court says, either in Duncan or a semi-auto case, or another hardware case, or for that matter, in the prohibited people case, which is the, uh, marijuana case that's in front of the Supreme Court right now, or the, or the, or the banned places case, which is the Wolford v. Vampire rule case that's in the Supreme Court right now. Both of those cases, the Supreme Court has is going to hear. They, they've set briefing schedules.

>> Well, they just kind of continue to stack up. Uh, I tend to be optimistic in hoping that we can get some of these clarifying answers. So hopefully some, some positivity to look forward to in 2026 there with SCOTUS taking on more 2A cases, uh, than they have, uh, throughout their history. Uh, so that, guys, that is the, the, the lawsuits that were brought in 2025. Of course, a lot of this movement is through the federal district court, as well as the Ninth Circuit. Uh, however, we do have a lot of other cases that were brought, uh, before 2025. So, let's go ahead and crack on into those.

One that was brought in 2024, uh, was CRPA's case, CRPA versus the LA County Sheriff's Department. We already kind of mentioned that in the, uh, in the context of the Santa Clara, uh, and what we actually challenged there, but this year we did see a couple of good opinions come out of this case, uh, while it continues to be litigated. Chuck, can you go ahead and fill us in on those decisions that we did get, uh, from the, the court on this case?

>> Yeah. Well, the court said that the county cannot refuse to accept applications from people out of, out of state. And that's changed the whole game for non-resident, non-California residents to get CCWs that are valid in California. Now, it's still cumbersome and it's not where we want it to be, and we'll probably wind up having to challenge the way they're doing that. We'll have to see how it plays out. But in the meantime, that's a win. I mean, we, we got the, the, the, the law that that doesn't allow out-of-state permits, applicants, out-of-state residents to to apply, uh, struck down. So, that's a, that's a big win. Uh, then we got the, the firm, the fee that was E-Lever was charging, as I mentioned, we got them to lower that fee and and, uh, drop out of the game. So, we had to bring Blank to the Blank case to re, to litigate the, the amount of charges that are constitutional again. And, and, and against the LA County Sheriff, we're getting them to bring to shorten the timeline, get it down to the 120-day maximum that state law allows, which is itself too long. I don't like that either. It shouldn't take nearly that long. It doesn't take that long in any other, uh, state that, that issues CCW. So, we'll, I, I presume that there will be litigation challenging that state law, but for right now, we're just getting the LA County Sheriff to speed up the process and start, uh, accepting applications and issuing CCWs in numbers that they've never done before.

>> You know, this is kind of where I get, uh, tripped up from time to time. Logically thinking, you have a complaint that you bring to a court, and then the court, you argue that with with the opposing side to the court, and then the court gives you a decision. Uh, this case is still being litigated, even though we've seen a couple of victories at it, at it already. What is it that continues to be litigated after we've already got these opinions, and is that what carries us through to 2026? What do we have to look forward to, uh, next year with this?

>> Well, we got an injunction against the DOJ non, uh, uh, because the statute didn't allow out-of-state residents to apply. So, that was a final, final ruling. Then the DOJ agreed that, basically, you're working towards a judgment. If the other side won't agree to settle, and now that we can't really do preliminary injunctions the way we did, because if you do a preliminary injunction request and the state then changes the law, which they did of our non-state residents, then you can't pursue a recovery of your attorney's fees. So you have to, now it's become a longer game. You can't do the preliminary injunction phase because if you win and they appeal, and then the state somehow, while it's being appealed, repeals the law, you're, that you won the issue, but you lost your ability to recover fees. So you have to go through discovery and then work your way towards a trial or a motion for summary judgment, and then a final judgment with a permanent injunction at the end. The process takes time. You can't just jump and unfort. It's unfortunate because you have to do all these. The state is notorious for throwing down arguments, procedural arguments, like you don't have standing, or this is a facial challenge, it has to be unconstitutional in all respects, or, you know, whatever procedural obstacles they can throw in the way. They want to take depositions of the plaintiffs or the, or other witnesses. I mean, it, it all just slows down, bogs down that process from where we would have been able to argue the substantive merits of the core issue initially. Uh, now you have to go through discovery and then argue those issues at the end. So, but we're short-circuiting that in with Leverne and with DOJ, and now with LA County Sheriff, because they're agreeing that they, they see that they would ultimately lose on taking this long to process applications. So, they're willing to do what they can to speed up the process without that final judgment. But, we're going to be working to get them to agree to a final judgment. Uh, we just have to now negotiate the terms.

>> Yeah. And I think this does end up being a piece in the larger picture of 2025 that the courts showed us, uh, that we continue to be victorious on the question of CCWs and the rights that Californians have to have a CCW. So looking forward to continuing and progress that logic going into 2026. Uh, one that we didn't see a whole lot of progression on in 2025, Chuck, was the James v. Maduros case, or the dreaded, uh, James v. Maduros case. Of course, guys, this is the one that we challenged Assembly Bill 28, which, uh, if we had our legislative director Rick on with us today, would have called it a zombie bill. Of course, this was a bill, uh, asking to raise the tax for the firearms community for like seven or eight years. We continued to beat the bills back year after year, but it finally got passed. Uh, Chuck, can you remind us of the complaint here, uh, against Assembly Bill 28?

>> Sure. We're challenging the 11% excise tax as a tax on a constitutional right. The problem is, when you f, when you challenge a tax, you can't go into the district court, the federal court to challenge a state tax. You have to do that in state court. And you have to file, you have to first litigate it within the administrative agency. You can't just jump to court. This is like trying to sue a municipality. Uh, you know, if you trip on a sidewalk or something, uh, you have to actually submit a letter saying, it's called an administrative claim. You have to submit a claim and then has to be denied before you can go to court. So, we got the, the, the, the case got wrapped around the axle on these procedural things about what, who the proper defendant is, what we had to do before we could go to court. Uh, and so we had to get a tax, a clear, someone who had clearly paid the tax, and that's Powe now, Powe FFL. Uh, and so that case has now morphed into, uh, uh, Powe v. Maduro, and it's in the superior court. Now.

>> That is a little bit off-kilter from what we normally do. Um, we normally file our lawsuits with the federal district court. Because so what you're saying is, because this is a tax, we had to go through the superior court in California. And, uh, the last I heard when I was talking to Josh about it, the, the state was throwing all kinds of administrative hoops for us to jump through. Uh, when you look at the docket, it, it looks like there was an entry for dismissal in San Diego and then a refiling up in Sacramento. Uh, can you go ahead and explain that process for us?

>> Yeah, rather than spend a lot of time and money fighting the state over what we had to do before we could get, before we could actually take the case to court to begin with, we dismissed the first case, the Sanchez case, got rid of all the issues that the state was claiming were issues in Sanchez, re, and refiled it in Sacramento, close to the administrative office for the tax board, uh, with a new plaintiff who had clearly paid the tax, because you have to pay the tax in order to have standing to get the tax, to clear the tax unconstitutional and get it back. So, we had to file a totally new lawsuit, basically, that that addressed all the state's concerns that they had brought up in the first one, so we didn't have to spend a lot of money and time litigating all those procedural issues and just get down, like I said, we want to get down to the brass tax, so to speak, is the tax, uh, unconstitutional or not. And of course, we spend a lot of time talking about how that is the playbook of the state to pass laws that they know are unconstitutional and to just wrap these things up in court, uh, for as long as they possibly can with the unconstitutional laws applied to Californians. So, hoops averted, to a certain extent, by getting that up to Sacramento. Uh, Chuck, do you see a little bit, because of that, do you see a little bit more movement of this case in 2026 than we saw in 2025?

>> Oh, yeah. I think this case is probably going to be resolved one way or another. Well, be resolved at the trial court level in, in 2026.

>> Certainly something to look forward to there. Uh, so let's move on to May v. Bont. Uh, a lawsuit filed a couple of years ago. This one again, uh, had gave us a little bit of a stir around Christmas time, uh, with the injunction that we originally got, and then the stay of that injunction, and then a reinstitution of that injunction. Can you go ahead and remind us what the May v. Bont complaint is?

>> Well, May is a challenge to the state's over-designation of certain areas as sensitive where a CCW is invalid. Remember these places, you know, bars, parking lots, whatever. Uh, all those places were, were places where if you had a CCW, a hundred years ago, and that's when the CCW law started taking effect, you could carry in those places if you had a CCW. And there was never any problem with that. But the pretext that the state used is, oh, now that Bruin requires us to issue permits, we're going to declare all these other places to be sensitive places where they, we can ban guns and ban CCWs, uh, firearm possession. You can still possess in a lot of those places as long as it's unloaded in a locked container, but, uh, your CCW is not valid in, in these places. And they, they went overboard just trying to name as many places as they could, you know, as sensitive. It's a false designation. So, we're challenging their ability to declare places that aren't actually sensitive. I mean, if you're going into a courthouse through a metal detector, that's a sensitive place. But if you're sitting in a parking lot that happens to have a bar in the, in the shopping center, that's not a sensitive place. So, there's that's the fight over what is and what isn't, and how do you determine what is.

>> And of course, we got, uh, the injunction that we were looking for out of the federal district court. We started off the year here in 2025, uh, with essentially a partial reversal of that while this case was being heard with the Wolford v. Lopez case, which is a similar case out of Hawaii. Uh, but the big difference that we saw in the, the court's opinion of our case versus the Wolford case, was that they said the vampire rule in California was not constitutional, uh, whereas they allowed it in Hawaii. From there, Chuck, we saw a, a, a split in pathing from, from the Wolford case and the May case. Can you describe that there for both, as we have seen that the Supreme Court is going to be taking the Wolford case under a very narrow scope, answering one question? Uh, can you explain the difference in pathing there for both of those cases?

>> Wolford is, we won on the vampire rule in California. Wolford lost in Hawaii. So he took that sole issue on the vampire rule up to the Supreme Court, basically, uh, splitting off from our case. So our case is still sitting in the Ninth Circuit, uh, as of the date of this video, and I think we've done the briefing. I, to tell you the truth, I'm not actually, it may be back down in the district court. I forget exactly where May is, to be honest with you. I think it's back down in the district court, and we're waiting to see what they do in the Supreme Court with Wolford and whether or not there's any guidance that comes out of that about what is and what is not a sensitive place, and then we'll probably have to litigate that in the district court and possibly back up in the Ninth Circuit again, because we wiped out some of these cases that they design, some of these places that they designated as sensitive, but not all of them, and we really don't want to live with the rest either.

>> Yeah. So, you, you get a decision like that from the, from the Ninth Circuit. You have a couple of different options. You go back down to the federal district court and seek a judgment, which we, we know that the Supreme Court has kind of indicated that they like, or they would rather see a case, uh, that has come to a judgment as opposed to an interlocutory appeal seeking a, a preliminary injunction. Or you can take that appeal for a preliminary injunction up to the Supreme Court, which we have tried in a couple of cases and didn't get the best result on. So, as Wolford takes that, uh, glaring issue of the vampire rule and appeals it to SCOTUS, uh, we took ours back down to the federal district court to seek a judgment there. Uh, and so, Chuck, having said that, uh, with the Supreme Court looking at Wolford, I, I know it's, it's not necessarily a direct decision on, on what, uh, is going on with May. Do we anticipate a lot of movement with May going into 2026?

>> Depends on what the Supreme Court says in Wolford. Yes. Potentially. I mean, the Supreme Court could say, could finally lay out specifically what you do to, to decide what is or is not a sensitive place. And when they do that, and they've kind of done it already in Bruin, you know, it's, it's not supposed to be just any place that the state picks. There has to be some real justification for it to be deemed sensitive, like a courthouse or a polling place or something like that. But otherwise, uh, the state can't just deem places as sensitive. So they can ban guns there. So there, but depending on what happens in Wolford, we may see some changes in the way the May case was decided.

>> So connecting some lines there, something to pay attention to going into the new year. Uh, let's hit another one that we didn't necessarily hear a whole lot from in 2025. That is Richards v. Newsom. Uh, huge potential for, uh, invasion of privacy as the state of California, uh, requires monitoring, uh, and surveillance, uh, of lots of different places within FFLs, that includes home FFLs. Chuck, can you remind us of the complaint in this one?

>> Yeah, we're challenging the state's law that requires FFLs to to record all firearms transfers and purchases. And basically, whether you're in your house selling as a kitchen table dealer or, or at Big Five, you still have to have all these cameras on you at the, all the time. And that's, uh, all of this is designed to just intimidate people. That's why they do this. They, they don't care. They're not going to, I don't think any of this footage has ever been used to solve any crimes. But, they want to make it as expensive to sell and as expensive to buy firearms as they can. So they price people out of the market. They want to intimidate people by having these cameras there. So it's, it's, uh, it's all just part of Newsom's game to, to, to murder the gun culture, basically. But so we're saying it's a First Amendment violation because you're, you're basically, you're spying, and there's no justification to do that for, for every sale. And so that's, that's the challenge, and we're working with Gun Owners of California and Gun Owners of America closely on that case.

>> Yeah. And don't forget, guys, just, uh, the buy-in for something like this. We were, uh, seeing quotes for surveillance systems, uh, for some of these FFLs getting up to $50,000. These cameras are not cheap. They're requiring the video to be at such a high resolution, and they're requiring that video to be held for at least a year. Uh, and that space costs money. Uh, this also seems like a way to price people out, uh, of the FFL business here in the state of California. So Chuck, uh, you know, we, we didn't really catch the eye of the federal district court, um, with this case. Didn't get the decisions that we wanted. Uh, when you look at the docket, it says that there's been, uh, an appeal to dismiss this case, but then more recently, uh, there's been some oral arguments put on the books for February of 2026. Something to look forward to. But I'm curious, how does that happen? H how do you go from, uh, a case with, uh, some entries to be dismissed to oral arguments, uh, coming up here pretty quick?

>> Well, the oral argument is in the Ninth Circuit. So, we're appealing whatever portions of the decision from the district court that we lost. So, that's been briefed now in the Ninth Circuit. So, moving up in the world there, something to look forward to at the beginning of the 2026 year. We've got oral arguments for the Richards case. And this one, guys, in my opinion, uh, could be one of the unsung heroes. You know, invasion of privacy is a huge deal. Applying this to home FFLs is downright wrong. I don't see how you could, as a federal district court judge, just completely ignore that. So, uh, the Ninth Circuit is where that one lives now, and we'll look forward to following along with that one.

Uh, how about the Boland v. Bont case, Chuck? This is one that we also didn't necessarily hear from. Um, maybe I'll, maybe we can give a little bit more, uh, clarification or context on this one, going all the way back to 2023. Uh, Jacob, actually, if you could pull this up from Judge Carney out of the federal district court, we got the opinion that we were looking for in our challenge, uh, to some of the requirements to get handguns onto the handgun roster. Uh, that order from that judge reads like this: "Now, therefore, it is hereby ordered that defendant Attorney General Robert Bont and his officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys, and those persons in active concert or participation with him, and those duly sworn state, uh, peace officers and federal law enforcement officers who gain knowledge of this injunction order or know of the existence of this injunction order, are hereby preliminarily restrained and enjoined from implementing or enforcing this law, or from otherwise preventing the retail sale of handguns that do not have a chamber load indicator, a magazine disconnect mechanism, or micro stamping capability, but that meet the other requirements of the, uh, uh, unsafe handgun act." And that is important to read that there, guys, because it has the magazine disconnect mechanism, the micro stamping capability, uh, uh, as well as the chamber load indicator. That is what was ordered on the injunction. So, the judge said you can't, uh, require these three things when you are applying these applications to get on the handgun roster. Uh, Chuck, can you explain where it went from here, because there was a little bit of things that happened that were out of the ordinary with this one, as the state appealed to the Ninth Circuit?

>> Yeah. Well, the state gave up on trying to defend the micro stamping requirement, and so we, we won on that. Uh, then the, the loaded chamber indicator and the magazine disconnect lock went up to the Ninth Circuit. Then the state went and passed another different new micro stamping law, which, uh, isn't, isn't in effect yet. So, there are some guns with some new guns with loaded chamber indicators and magazine disconnects that have gotten onto the roster. There's, there's about a half a dozen or so, at least, new guns that are available to purchase in California because of this. But we need thousands. There's tens of thousands of models of handguns out there, and most of them can't be purchased in California because they can't pass the test to get on the list, get on the roster of approved guns for sale. So, we're trying to get rid of that. We got rid of the micro stamping requirement, but the loaded chamber indicator and the magazine disconnect are equally, uh, unconstitutional. So, um, but the Ninth Circuit has stayed the case, waiting to see what happens with the Duncan case. Now, the Duncan case is in the Supreme Court. So, we'll have to see what the Supreme Court does with that before we go back down to the Ninth Circuit and talk about the, the, the rest of the Boland case in the Ninth Circuit.

>> Yeah. So, you, you, you get the decision that you're looking for out of the federal district court, and then this starts getting wonkier and wonkier. Um, you know, they, they, we get the injunction on all three of those things. The state only, uh, looks to stay two of them, leaving micro stamping off of that. You're right, they did bring new legislation for micro stamping in the future. And we've talked a lot about cases kind of being held up, waiting for other cases. Jacob, if you could pull this one up, though. This is the first time I've actually seen this. We went to the Ninth Circuit and argued this case in front of the three-judge panel. Uh, and then they end up doing this where you can see here it says, "Submission of this case is vacated pending the en banc decision of Duncan v. Bont." Obviously, we all know that the en banc decision of Duncan v. Bont already came out. We have appealed to the Supreme Court for that, and that's fine. But Chuck, I'm just sort of curious. While we've talked about a lot of these cases, waiting to get an opinion from another case to move forward, this is the first time I've actually seen a panel of judges come out and actually write that down. Uh, why does this happen here, but not in other cases?

>> Well, it has happened in other cases. They stayed Rodie, uh, the ammunition case, uh, pending Duncan. First time around, they, they stayed a couple of other cases, too. Uh, so it's not unusual because this, the, the Ninth Circuit is looking for some guidance from either an en banc panel or the Supreme Court. They, they don't want to have a, they don't want to issue a conflicting opinion.

>> Gotcha. Well, with that, uh, you know, we didn't see a whole lot of movement in the year 2025, uh, with the Supreme Court taking up a couple of cases and with, um, Duncan up there. Also, do you see the same fate in 2026 with how, uh, the, the pace of this litigation takes, or do you see potential movement here in the next year?

>> Oh, there'll be movement. It's just if we win in Duncan, or, or, or any other case, for that matter, that the Supreme Court may clarify what the rules are to the extent they need. I mean, they're clear to me, but the state loves to obfuscate. Uh, that, that should make it, uh, more, uh, obvious that the, the decision of the lower court was correct.

>> Well, fair enough. Going from a case that we saw barely any movement from to a case that we saw a ton of movement from. Of course, I'm talking about Junior Sport Magazine v. Bont. This was our challenge to Assembly Bill 2571. Chuck, can you give us the recap on this one? What was the challenge here and why was the challenge needed?

>> Well, part of the state's effort to murder the gun culture is to not let children, juniors, junior shooters, be exposed to firearms or the social benefits of firearms, or, uh, the training for self-defense, or the different, anything about the, the history of firearms, or the development of firearms, the different types of firearms. All that stuff. They wanted to preclude, uh, any marketing to or advertising or communications even to junior shooters about about any of those topics because they don't want people, they don't want youngsters to know this. They don't want youngsters to appreciate the social utility of firearms or the recreational value of the shooting sports. So, we challenged it. We won, uh, in the Ninth Circuit. But the Ninth Circuit, when it was remanded, the state came up with a new argument that, oh, that you only won on section A. You didn't win on section B or C. So section B and C are still in effect. So we had to go up to the Ninth Circuit again and get the court to make it clear that, no, the entire law is, is struck down. And so the state has finally, I think, come to to realize that they have lost 100% of this case. And now we're in, in discussions with them to try and get a final judgment entered with the court that that locks that win in for forever.

>> Yeah, this one was, uh, pretty frustrating going throughout the year, at least from my perspective, and we talked about this with Anna a little bit, you know, leaving 2024, uh, with a denial for preliminary injunction from the federal district court. It goes up to the Ninth Circuit, it gets remanded back down. It goes up to the Ninth Circuit again, gets remanded back down. You kind of have to ask the question, like, why the heck doesn't the Ninth Circuit just give you the injunction? Can you walk us through that, that, uh, judicial process a little bit? Why is it that the case had to go up and down a couple times before you could get a decision?

>> Well, because the, we, we, we got a good decision from the Ninth Circuit the first time around, but the district, the state argued to the district court that the decision didn't knock out the whole law. And we're looking at the judge in the, and the Ninth Circuit decision saying, "Yes, it did." And the, but the court agreed with the state. The district court, the trial court agreed with the state, said, "Yeah, you're only, this only applies to the one section, one half of this law." So then we had to go back up again and get the Ninth Circuit to confirm it applied to the entire law. And now the district court, the trial court, is forced to accept that, yes, it applies to the entire law. And, and the state is forced to accept that, yes, it applies to the entire law. The entire law is struck down.

>> Right. And that's kind of highlighted here. Jacob, if you could pull it up. I took a quip from this. Uh, we finally did get that, uh, decision on in July from the Ninth Circuit where they said this: "We earlier held that section 22949.80 of the California Business and Professions Code, a statutory scheme that bars firearm advertising that reasonably appears to be attractive to minors, violates the First Amendment. On remand, the district court declined to preliminarily enjoin section B of that of section, uh, 22949.80, which prevents the firearm industry from compiling or using personal information of minors for marketing purposes. We reverse the district court and clarify that our constitutional analysis applied to the entirety of section 22949.80." Uh, and you, and as you kind of already said, Chuck, it looks like this one has gone to settlement. So, uh, do we see, do we see this as a win and as a conclusion, or is there more for us here in 2026?

>> It's a win right now. We have an injunction in place against the entire law. So, juniors can shoot. You can advertise guns to juniors. You can have, uh, shooting events that juniors are invited to where firearms are on display or are fired, uh, on the range. Uh, so that, this, this statute is, is gone. So, it's just a matter of now getting the word out to retailers, that, and to range operators, and to manufacturers who want to sponsor, uh, shooting events, that they're free to, to market again. Uh, you know, when this first came down, Bass Pro took little teddy bears off its shelves. The teddy bears had a, a t-shirt on that and said, "I love my dad the hunter," and they had to take that off the, the shelves. I mean, that's how, how treacherous and intimidating this law was. Well, it's gone. The judgment's not in place, but the injunction is in place. And so, uh, that's good enough to, to be able to get back in the, in the game.

>> Yeah, absolutely. Probably, uh, the most detrimental impact to the firearms community came from AB 2571. So glad that that is also our most decisive victory of the year 2025. And we got to get that message out that advertising can happen again. Let's re, try to recoup the losses that we had with some of these programs throughout the state that came to a complete standstill while, you know, the fog of this bill was, was being sorted out. So, good that we got a decisive victory there. Uh, how about BNL Productions, Chuck? Uh, you know, leaving 2024, we, we had appealed this one to SCOTUS, or at least for a preliminary injunction, uh, to SCOTUS on this one. We got denied. But first, can you remind us of the complaint that we have here in BNL Productions v. Newsom?

>> Well, they've been trying, trying to ban gun shows on any state, uh, land for, for years and years, decades, and we've been, we managed to beat them back, stopped them in most instances, although folks remember the Great Western Show out at the Pomona Fairgrounds. We weren't able to, to, to get that gun show saved, but, they, when they tried to ban it in Del Mar, uh, we fought back. We won. We got the law struck down. The state made some changes to the law, uh, and then passed it at a new level where it banned gun shows on any state fairgrounds. And mind you, these state fairgrounds, like the government has a monopoly on any venue that's big enough to hold a good, good-sized gun show. The fairgrounds are, they won't let somebody else build a private fairgrounds. These are state, uh, fairgrounds. Great, uh, the BNL Code of the West gun shows was on the Del Mar fairgrounds and other fairgrounds throughout the state of California for decades, didn't have a problem, but they, part of the eradicating the gun culture, part of murdering the gun culture, is not to have these gun shows where people can actually get together, talk about guns, and have a good time. They don't want people to understand any of the social benefits of firearms, uh, so they, they, we, we challenged that law, and the Ninth Circuit decided very, very strangely that you can have a gun show, you can have guns, you can offer a gun for sale, but you can't, someone can't accept that offer. If you put a gun on the counter and somebody, you say, "We'll sell this to you." And somebody says, "I want to buy it." You can't respond and say, "Okay, you can't finish the paperwork." So, we now have to look into alternate ways to complete a gun sale. And we're doing that, uh, using the internet and some other things where people will be, we'll still be able to have gun shows, but, uh, there will be some unusual way that you complete the sale. Uh, which doesn't make as big of a difference as it might, because you had to, you couldn't take the gun out of the gun show anyway. You got to wait 10 days and go pick it up at the FFL storefront after the gun show anyway. But it's a matter of now trying to nail down exactly what the Ninth Circuit's decision does and does not allow. And so we're back in the district court arguing about that and about how we can conduct a gun show and be in compliance with the Ninth Circuit's rule.

>> Yeah. And this one, you know, I, I think it's important to remember with this one that, like, on the populist level, uh, we continued to win this argument. Uh, the, the, uh, the pro-gun control groups were advocating to these fair boards for years to get rid of these gun shows, and the gun owners showed up and they showed out. Uh, we continued to convince, uh, the fair boards that the gun shows were worth having. It really ended up contributing to the diverse nature of the fairgrounds themselves. We continued to present those good arguments to the fair boards, which is why they kept them around, which forced those gun control advocacy groups to take it to the next level, go to the legislators. And, uh, I remember a couple years ago when there was just kind of an onslaught, uh, of these bills. And if I remember correctly, last time I looked at these stats, there were more issues pertaining to firearms at concerts at fair, at fairgrounds, than they had at gun shows. So definitely kind of a nothing burger when you look at the stats, and, and we have asked for these stats. Where are these crimes that you continue to state are happening at gun shows? And they have just shown us nothing when it comes to those statistics. So definitely one worth fighting for. Chuck, when I'm looking at the docket here throughout 2025, I'm continuous, I'm continuously seeing status reports, status reports, status reports. Uh, what are these status reports, and, and what do we have to look forward to with BNL in 2026?

>> Well, the status reports are just updates on the discussions between the parties and what needs to happen in the case next. But I expect in 2026 we will get some definitive answers about what can and cannot take place with respect to, to a sale of a firearm at a gun or ammunition at a gun show. And I think these gun shows will be able to stay in business. Um, you know, ammo, ammo is a bigger problem, and that's what we're going to talk about in ROI in just a second. Uh, but we'll, I

think we're going to work up some we will develop some workarounds so that whatever the Ninth Circuit restrictions are, the gun shows can still take place. In the meantime, uh, lots of other fairgrounds outside of Orange County, they're still willing to to hold the shows.

Well, fair enough. And let's talk about that ammo. Um, which kind of brings us to the highest profile cases that we have here in ROI as well as Duncan. Of course, we saw some movement this year uh with the ROI case as well as we got a favorable decision from the Ninth Circuit. Of course, guys, this is our challenge to the ammunition regulations in California imposed uh by Proposition uh uh Prop 63 back in 2016. Uh this is the background check requirement for ammunition purchases. This is the ban on uh uh ammunition manufacturers uh being able to ship ammunition to your door. Uh and the ban on importation of ammunition across state lines without having um a COE.

Uh the the opinion that we got from the Ninth Circuit kind of stunned a little bit just because you don't necessarily accept favorable decisions out of the Ninth Circuit these days. Jacob, if you could pull it up. Uh that opinion reads like this. Uh the panel applied the two-step framework set forth in the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Brewan in assessing plaintiff's second amendment challenge. Applying the first step, the panel held that California's ammunition background check regime implicates the plain text of the second amendment because the regime meaningfully constrains the right to keep and bear arms. Applying the second step, the panel held that the government failed to carry the burden of showing that California's ammunition background check regime is consistent with the nation's historical traditions of firearms regulation. The historical analogies proffered by California were not within the relevant time frame, nor were they relevantly similar to California's ammunition background check regime. According to the panel uh that held California's ammunition background check regime did not survive scrutiny under the two-step Brewin analysis.

Uh so Chuck, this is something you don't see out of the the Ninth Circuit too often. I mean, does this create a more favorable scenario uh going into the Ninth Circuit on bonk panel, which we just saw uh the Ninth Circuit onbunk panel did accept the roadie case to to be litigated going forward.

Well, I mean, it's always better to have a be going up on bonk on a winning decision. The problem is that when they take it on bonk, that suggests there's some judges who disagree with the decision, the three-judge decision. So, we have to fight that now. And we are fighting that tooth and nail. This is scorched earth. This is background checks on ammunition. If they can get away with this, they can get away with background checks on barrels or any any gun part. They just again litigate. They'll they'll regulate the right to death, red tape, the right to death. Uh and so uh we are preparing our briefs. We've and in fact I've reached out to the United States Department of Justice. I think that it's likely that they will join us in supporting uh this our challenge to this law. And uh you know, Hermit Dylan, the head of the civil rights division, actually appeared in the seventh circuit when we appealed the um Illinois U semi-auto ban. She actually appeared, they filed a brief, they they appeared at oral argument as I mentioned earlier, they filed a brief in the Walford case that's in the Supreme Court for the first time that's a United States government's filing a brief on behalf arguing in favor of the second amendment so they're engaged and I think that they're going to be engaged in this case. Uh but there's another one, you know, a lot of this depends on the luck of the draw, who you get for the 11 judges on the onbach panel. It will not be the same as Duncan. Uh so if we get a good draw. Uh we could win. If we don't win, we'll go to the Supreme Court on that one.

Now, there was I mean, one of the things that we talk about a lot with the Duncan case specifically was freedom week. Uh of course, you get that favorable decision from the court saying that the injunction is in place. Uh and there's a little bit of time before the state uh actually gets that injunction state as they continue to uh appeal it to the next um to the next level of the judicial system. Uh there was a little bit of an aftershock after the Ninth Circuit gave us the opinion that it gave us. Can you walk us through what happened with that, the confusion that that unfolded in the community and and what it led to?

Well, the opinion did not vacate the injunction that the lower court had issued. So, there was a big debate about whether or not it was there was going to be a freedom couple of days where you could buy ammunition through the mail or go to a gun store and buy it without a background check. And a lot of a lot of ammunition was sold that way until it was finally clarified that by the court that now the injunction is still in effect. This law is not struck down finally yet and you have to wait and see what the onwalk court might do. So the as of now this law is still in effect. You still need to get the background check when you buy ammunition. You can't buy it over the internet, but we're working on it.

And we we talk about uh how these cases, some of them are dependent on Duncan. This one continues to move while Duncan is still appealed to the Supreme Court. Uh do you anticipate any stalling uh in in you know uh going parallel with Duncan here or do you continue to see this? What do we have to look forward to in 2026?

Court grants a hardware case or any case that might influence the way this decision would be held or be decided. The oral argument on this is in March. Whatever cases the Supreme Court takes, they're going to issue all the decisions by the end of June. So this I expect the Ninth Circuit will hold the onbank ruling until after the Supreme Court issues whatever second amendment case decisions it's going to in June and then the Ninth Circuit will consider those, see if they make any difference and they'll issue their opinion in ROI.

Well, then we can add uh that one to the breatholding that we are doing with Duncan uh which is our final case here. Of course, we have uh appealed Duncan to the Supreme Court. This is our challenge uh to the uh large capacity magazine ban that California has uh here in the state. Uh we've gotten good decisions, we've gotten bad decisions as this one has lived uh in the federal court, the Ninth Circuit and at Scotas for the last few years now having gone up and down with Bruin and then all the way back up again. Uh Jacob, actually, if you could pull this up. This is uh the last decision that we got from the onbank panel. It reads like this. The onbank court held that a California law banning the possession of large capacity magazine comports with the second amendment, reverses the district court's contrary con uh conclusion and remanded with the instruction to enter judgment in favor of attorney general to the state of California. Obviously, like I said, we saw that and said, well, maybe the Supreme Court has something to say about that. Uh and from here, we take it to Scotas. So, uh, can you just sort of Chuck walk us through the work that's been put into Duncan this year as we have appealed to the Supreme Court?

Well, this year it was mostly in the onbanc court and then the cert petition to the Supreme Court, but this case is eight years old. So, there was a lot of work in previous years that we did on this case and we've won. We won in the district court. We went up to the three-judge panel. We won. We lost on bonk. We went to the Supreme Court. They remanded it back down after they decided Bruin. It was sent all the way back down to the trial court. We won again and then the onbach panel grabbed it rather than going to a three-judge panel. They grabbed it directly and ruled against us seven to four. So one vote would have flipped it uh or to anyway uh so um and now we've asked the Supreme Court to hear it again and it, you know, it's fully the record is fully developed. All the evidence and the expert testimony everything else is in the record. The Supreme Court has that in front of it and I hope that they recognize that uh you know, a lot of people are going to become criminals overnight if they if this law goes into effect because it doesn't doesn't you know, the state in its typical slimy little way passed the law initially and grandfathered in everybody who had one. So they weren't going to take them away from people who already had them had had them. But then when Nome was running for governor, he needed to build up his name recognition. So he ran Prop 63 and Prop 63 eliminated the grandfathering clause and made it completely illegal to possess magazines that hold over 10 rounds entirely. So that's, you know, because they promise you, oh, we're just going to do it to the people who did not don't have them yet. Well, you know, the laws never go far enough in their minds. They always got to expand them. Add another law that expands the law. You know, we tell them it's not going to work. It's not going to make us any safer. Oh, yes it will. Then it doesn't. Then they then we say, "We told you it wouldn't make us safer." Then they say, "Well, that's because it didn't go far enough." So, they get, this is the constant game, the creeping uh uh regulatory expansion that that this that the anti-gun politicians and anti-gun advocacy groups always work to advance. Uh so, I just, you know, I have, like I said, I have all my digits crossed that the Supreme Court takes that Duncan case and sets the record straight.

I think as always, a certain level of optimism is required as you continue to move forward with this stuff. But you hit on a really good point there that we need to continue and remind ourselves about, there is no grandfathering clause in Prop 63. You know, part of the injunction that we got in July of 2019 uh was that they were not going to enforce the law when it comes to the ban on uh these magazines. So uh while we went through freedom week and we continued the discussion of you know, legalizing the manufacturer manufacturing and the importation of these magazines, which we saw in freedom week, over a million magazines came into the state. If if uh this case is lost. Not only will we not be able to manufacture or import these magazines into the state, we're not going to be able to possess them period. We're gonna have to turn them over uh to the government or we are going to be found uh illegally possessing these magazines. So really important uh that we are victorious in this case.

So uh Chuck, I I guess overall optimism, overall pessimism, all of these cases, whether they were uh filed this year or carried over from years in the past, what is your overall view of 2026 going into the new year uh with all of this litigation that we have?

Well, we've got the Trump administration squarely on our side and Hamid Dylan, head of the Civil Rights Department of the United States Department of Justice is clearly working overtime to defend the Second Amendment. They just announced today as of the day of this recording that the Second Amendment, there's a now a task force set up, a department set up within the Department of Justice to protect the Second Amendment. So, that is a cause for great optimism, but it is not a reason to lay down uh and assume we've won because you can't mail this in. We still need donations. We still need supporters. We h we have to continue. We have to fight this. We're winning some battles. We're going to win more battles, but ultimately we have to win the war. And that's going to take more time, more effort, more fighting, more support from members and supporters of CRPA. CRPA has become the leading advocacy group in uh California. We have more programs, more staff, more things in play. It's not just litigation. Litigation gets a lot of attention, but the the the shooter development programs that we have, the safety programs, the marksmanship programs, the hunting and conservation programs, the legislative advocacy programs, which are doing great up in Sacramento with Rick Travis. Uh we're just we're just accomplishing amazing things. Uh but we can't stop fighting. We have to keep fighting on all fronts and we need people to support us to be able to do that. So it's a historic time. Join us, support us, give us your time, get involved in a local chapter. Whatever you can do uh to make yourself a part of the history of the Second Amendment as it as it becomes the uh the tool that we need to protect our rights.

Yeah. And guys, I guess just to further uh clarify that point, all of these cases are the CRPA cases. I I know that there are uh other Second Amendment cases out there, but this is how CRPA is contributing with litigation in the state of California. Uh and it's a lot uh and it and it will continue to grow and be a lot. Obviously, you know, we did discuss a couple of victories that we have. It's great to close some of these chapters uh while we continue to open new ones on our path uh to reigniting the Second Amendment here in the state of California. Chuck, I know you're a busy guy. I I do want to thank you for coming on and sharing with us and look forward to the next year with you.

I give I give institutional credit to those that deserve it. The Rodian Duncan case, the NRA is working with us on those cases and helping to support those. Uh some other cases there are support from Second Amendment Foundation, from Gun Owners of America, Gun Owners of California, uh other other groups. We're we're we're working with everybody. It's not a a zero sum game here. We can work with our partners and and we're happy to share the credit where it's deserved. But in the meantime, the the the the driving force behind all this stuff in California, especially CRPA. So help us out.

Absolutely. And guys, as always, uh, if you want to continue and see content like this, I'm hoping that this video helped make a clearer picture for you to see what we have going forward into the year of 2026. You can directly contribute to this cause just by liking, sharing, and subscribing the video. It really helps with the algorithms to get this information out as far and wide as possible, and we are looking to do that. We've just got a couple days left in this year and we are going to get the ball rolling quickly in 2026. And you can help us do that just by liking, sharing, and subscribing to the videos. Thanks again, guys. We'll see you on the next one.