BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation has joined the Calguns Foundation and California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees in support of a lawsuit filed today by four California gun dealers against State Attorney General Kamala Harris, alleging a violation of their First Amendment rights.
Actual plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, are Tracy Rifle and Pistol, owned by Michael Baryla; Ten Percent Firearms, owned by Wesley Morris; Sacramento Black Rifle, Inc., owned by Robert Adams, and PRK Arms, Inc., owned by Jeffrey Mullen. They are represented by attorneys Bradley A. Benbrook and Stephen Duvernay, Benbrook Law Group, PC, and UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh.
In addition to Harris, State Department of Justice Bureau of Firearms chief Stephen Lindley, is named as a co-defendant.
The lawsuit alleges that the California Penal Code violates the First Amendment rights of the plaintiffs by prohibiting them from displaying images of handguns or even the word “handguns” where they would be visible to passersby. However, anti-gun protesters are still allowed to appear with signs that use the words or images, constituting what the lawsuit calls “viewpoint discriminatory.”
“By prohibiting firearms dealers from displaying on-site handgun advertisements,
Section 26820 violates the right of firearms dealers to disseminate truthful, nonmisleading
commercial information about a lawful, constitutionally protected product,” the lawsuit alleges.
SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb said this case “will serve as a reminder that firearms dealers have First Amendment rights as well as Second Amendment rights, even in California.”
“A state cannot legislate political correctness at the expense of a fundamental, constitutionally-delineated civil right,” Gottlieb said. “SAF is delighted to offer its financial support of this case.”