California LOSES Control | Rhode v. Bonta: The Ammo Case They DON'T Want You to See

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Imagine you legally own a firearm. You have committed no crime. You are not prohibited from owning a gun. You are not on any list. You have done nothing wrong. Now, imagine that every single time you want to buy a box of bullets, not a gun, bullets, the state of California requires you to pass a brand new background check. Not a check you already passed last week. Not a check tied to your license. A brand new check every single time. And if the system glitches, if there's a typo in your name, a missing hyphen in the database, you are denied. Not delayed, denied. And your constitutional right to practice a fundamental freedom is gone until you can figure out why a government computer didn't like your paperwork. This has been California's ammunition background check law since 2019. And in 11% of reported cases, it either severely delayed or completely eliminated people's ability to buy ammunition at all. In a state of 39 million people, that is tens of thousands of law-abiding gun owners who couldn't buy ammo to practice a constitutional right. On March 25th, 2026 in Pasadena, California, after 8 years of litigation, the final arguments in Rhode vs. Bonta were heard before an 11-judge en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. This is the last stop at the Ninth Circuit. Whatever they decide, this is it. Today, I'm breaking down everything that happened in that courtroom. The arguments, the exchanges, the outcome. All sources are pinned in the comments. Go verify everything yourself. Before I break this down, I want to say something to you. This is video seven on Firearms Law Advisor.

[00:01:34]Seven videos, we are brand new, and the response from this community on every video so far has been something I genuinely didn't expect. You are showing up, you are sharing, you are commenting, and it means everything. We are sitting right at the edge of 1,000 subscribers, and I truly believe the people watching this video can get us there today. Hit subscribe right now. 2 seconds. Then come to the comments and type three words. Firearms Law Advisor. Just those three words. I go through every comment personally and thank every subscriber by name. Not a bot, me. You support this channel. Now, let's get into Rhode vs. Bonta. Let's go back to the beginning so you have the full picture. In 2019, California implemented one of the most restrictive ammunition purchase laws in the United States. Under this law, codified as part of California's Proposition 63 and subsequent legislation, any person buying ammunition in California must pass a background check at the point of sale every single purchase. There is no carryover. There is no cumulative license. If you buy ammunition on Monday and want to buy more on Friday, you go through the whole process again on Friday.

[00:02:41]>> [music] >> And it gets worse. California also banned all online and out-of-state ammunition sales directly to California residents. Every ammunition purchase must be done face-to-face with a California-licensed dealer. You cannot order ammunition online and have it shipped to your home, even from a completely legal retailer. The lawsuit challenging this law is Rhode vs. Bonta.

[00:03:01]It was filed in 2018 by Olympic shooting champion Kim Rhode, a six-time Olympic medalist who has competed for the United States in every Olympic Games since 1996, along with ammunition retailers and the California Rifle and Pistol Association, backed by the NRA. The case landed in front of Federal Judge Roger Benitez in San Diego, the same judge who has repeatedly struck down California gun laws. In April 2020, Judge Benitez ruled the law unconstitutional, writing one of the most powerful lines ever put in a Second Amendment ruling, "This experiment has been tried. The casualties have been counted.

[00:03:38]California's new ammunition background check law misfires, and the Second Amendment rights of California citizens have been gravely injured." Then came the Supreme Court's Bruen decision in 2022, which reset the entire framework for evaluating gun laws. The case was sent back down. Judge Benitez ruled again in January 2024, again striking down the law as unconstitutional under the new Bruen standard. California appealed. On July 24th, 2025, a three-judge Ninth Circuit panel affirmed Judge Benitez, again, entering a permanent injunction against the law.

[00:04:13]Then on August 7th, 2025, California Attorney General Rob Bonta petitioned for en banc review. On December 1st, 2025, the Ninth Circuit granted that petition. The law was allowed to stay in effect during the appeal, and oral arguments were scheduled for March 25th, 2026 in Pasadena. California's ammo law has been struck down twice by the same federal judge and once by a three-judge appellate panel, and the state keeps fighting. At what point does persistent litigation against rulings that keep finding a law unconstitutional become government abuse of the legal system?

[00:04:46]Tell me in the comments. March [music] 25th, 2026. Pasadena, California. 11 judges. The final arguments in Rhode vs. Bonta. And I want to walk you through what actually happened in that courtroom, because the exchanges between the judges and the attorneys reveal everything you need to know about where this case is going. First, the support for the gun owners' side was extraordinary and unprecedented. The United States Department of Justice argued in favor of striking down California's law. 25 states filed amicus briefs on the gun owners' side. Let that sink in. The federal government and 25 states walked into that courtroom and told the Ninth Circuit that California's ammunition law violates the Second Amendment. Now, despite all of that, the oral arguments themselves were tense, and I'll be honest with you. The panel was more hostile to the gun rights side than many expected. One of the most damning exchanges came when a judge pressed California's attorney on the 11% failure rate. Approximately 50,000 people, 11% of everyone who tried to buy ammunition under this law, were either severely delayed or denied entirely. The judge asked California directly, "Isn't there evidence that a significant number of those people, possibly a majority, still had not received ammunition 6 months after being initially rejected?"

[00:06:02]California's attorney responded that 60% of that 11% were able to get ammunition within 6 months, as if 6 months was acceptable, as if telling someone they have to wait half a year to exercise a constitutional right is a reasonable answer. One of the judges fired back immediately, and I'm paraphrasing here, "That's a little bit like saying millions of people have been able to speak. We're only saying that this particular group of people can't speak.

[00:06:27]That doesn't seem to help your argument." California's attorney never adequately addressed what happened to the remaining 5%, approximately 20,000 people, who never received their ammunition at all. She shifted to arguing that the law should be challenged as applied rather than as a facial challenge. In plain English, she was arguing the law is fine in general, but maybe these specific plaintiffs have a complaint. That's a legal dodge, and the judges noticed. Another devastating exchange came when a judge pointed out that California's background check is only valid for a single purchase. If you buy ammunition on Monday and want to buy more on Thursday, you start the entire process over again on Thursday. The judge asked California, "Do you have any data showing how often people suddenly become felons between one ammunition purchase and the next? Because that's the only justification for requiring a completely fresh check every single time." California's attorney admitted she had no such data. California kept trying to frame this as a licensing regime, similar to concealed carry permit systems that the Supreme Court has already approved, but there is no license here. Nobody in California gets an ammunition license. They get a one-time use background check that expires the moment the transaction is complete. Calling that a licensing regime is a deliberate mischaracterization of what this law actually does. When the attorney arguing for the gun owners' side took the podium, the tone changed completely. The interruptions increased. The pushback was sharper. But the attorney held her ground. She made one argument that I think cuts to the heart of this entire case. The law as written says that if a purchaser's information does not match a record in California's automated firearms system, the transaction shall be denied. Not maybe denied, shall be denied. So, if there is a typo in your name, a missing hyphen, a data entry error in a government database that has nothing to do with whether you are a prohibited person, you are denied. And the law does not require the state to check another database or give you any further process. It just says denied.

[00:08:25]Try again later. California's law denies your ammunition purchase automatically if there's a typo in a government database, even if you are completely legal. A judge compared this to being told you can't speak because of a government data error. Is that a constitutional system or a system designed to fail law-abiding people on purpose? Comment below. Here is the honest assessment, and I'm going to be straight with you, because that's what this channel is for. The Ninth Circuit en banc panel has a well-documented track record. In March 2025, just a year ago, an 11-judge en banc Ninth Circuit panel reversed the ruling that struck down California's large-capacity magazine ban in Duncan vs. Bonta. That case had also been won at the district court level and at the three-judge panel level. The full court reversed it anyway. The Ninth Circuit has, in recent history, never overturned a California gun law at the en banc stage, not once.

[00:09:19]The composition of this panel matters enormously. The 11 judges were selected at random from the Ninth Circuit's active judges. Based on the makeup and the tone of the arguments, there is genuine reason for concern that the court may reverse the three-judge panel's ruling and uphold California's ammunition background check law.

[00:09:36]However, and this is important, the legal landscape has changed since the Ninth Circuit's worst days of Second Amendment hostility. The Bruen framework from the Supreme Court is binding on every federal court in the country.

[00:09:48]Under Bruen, California must show that its ammunition background check has a historical analogue, a similar restriction that existed at the time of the founding. California has not been able to identify one because there isn't one. There is no historical tradition in this country of requiring citizens to pass a government check every single time they buy ammunition independently from a firearm. That has simply never existed. If the on bonk panel upholds the law despite that, they will almost certainly be doing so in violation of the Supreme Court's own instructions in Bruen, and that creates the foundation for a Supreme Court appeal. Now, the Supreme Court has been selective about Second Amendment cases since Bruen.

[00:10:31]There is no circuit split on this specific issue right now, which makes it harder to get the Supreme Court's attention. But, if the Ninth Circuit upholds a law that has no historical foundation under Bruen's own framework, that is exactly the kind of case the Supreme Court may feel obligated to take. A ruling from the on bonk panel could come anywhere from a few months to a year after the March 25th arguments.

[00:10:53]California's ammunition background check remains in effect while we wait. The Ninth Circuit has never, at the on bonk stage, overturned a California gun law.

[00:11:02]Do you think Bruen changes that, or do you think the full panel will find a way to uphold this law regardless of the historical record? Give me your honest prediction in the comments. I want to take a moment to talk about the name on this case because it's not just a legal caption on a court document. Kim [music] Rhode is a six-time Olympic medalist in shooting sports. She has competed for the United States at every Olympic Games since 1996: Atlanta, Sydney, Athens, Beijing, London, and Rio. She is one of the most decorated Olympic shooters in American history, and she is a California resident who watched California's ammunition law make it harder and harder for her to do the thing she has done at the highest level of athletic competition for three decades. She has been fighting this case since 2018, eight years, [music] through district court victories, through appellate wins, through on bonk delays.

[00:11:51]She stood on the courthouse steps in Pasadena on March 25th, 2026 after those final arguments, and said, "I'm here to see this through to the end." That is the spirit of this case. Not a corporation, not a lobbyist, an American athlete and gun owner who looked at an unconstitutional law and said, "I will not stop fighting." Here's where we stand. Rhode versus Bonta has been in the courts since 2018. Federal Judge Roger Benitez struck down California's ammunition background check law twice, in 2020 and again in 2024. A three-judge Ninth Circuit panel affirmed the injunction in July 2025. California got on bonk review. Final arguments took place March 25th, 2026 in Pasadena, with the US DOJ and 25 states arguing on the gun owner's side. The arguments revealed a law that denies people their constitutional right over government database errors, a law with an 11% failure rate affecting tens of thousands of people, a law with no historical foundation under the Supreme Court's own Bruen standard. And yet, the Ninth Circuit on bonk panel's track record gives every reason to be cautious about the outcome. Whatever happens, this case is not over. If the Ninth Circuit rules against gun owners, the Supreme Court is the next stop, and Kim Rhode has already made clear she is not going anywhere.

[00:13:08]You have a right it is an illusion, and the Constitution does not traffic in illusions. If this video gave you something, subscribe to Firearms Law Advisor right now, two seconds, then type Firearms Law Advisor in the comments, and I will personally thank you by name. We are seven videos in. We are building something and we need you with us for what's coming next. Stay informed, stay legal, know your rights.