Well, strap in folks—because once again, the Supreme Court had the perfect chance to slap California’s anti-gun tyrants back into constitutional reality… and they punted. On April 28, in a move that should infuriate every red-blooded American who gives a damn about liberty, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to California’s outright ban on gun shows held on public property.
Let me repeat that for the folks in the back: In the land of the free, California has successfully outlawed gun shows on publicly owned property, and the highest court in the land just looked the other way.
Now, this mess started back in 2022—because of course it did—when California lawmakers, always hunting for new ways to stomp on the Second Amendment, passed Senate Bill 256. The law basically said, “You peasants can no longer hold gun shows on public land.” Doesn’t matter if it’s a county fairground, a civic center, or the parking lot behind a taxpayer-funded community hall. If the land is owned by you, the taxpayer, you still can’t use it to exercise your Second Amendment rights.
Naturally, this didn’t sit well with groups who actually read the Constitution. The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), the California Rifle & Pistol Association (CRPA), and a gun show promoter by the name of B&L Productions, among others, filed a lawsuit. Their argument was simple: This isn’t just a Second Amendment issue—it’s a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments, too. Free speech? Freedom of assembly? Equal protection under the law? Yeah, California threw all that in the trash.
Alan M. Gottlieb, the founder of SAF, summed it up perfectly when the suit was filed: “The state has been regulating gun show operations almost out of existence, and more restrictive than brick-and-mortar retail gun shops or even internet sales. Now the California Senate Bill 256 ban amounts to a total deprivation of rights under the color of law.”
But in the great tradition of judicial gaslighting, the district court waved off all those pesky constitutional concerns and upheld the law. Then the ever-reliable anti-gun 9th Circuit Court of Appeals piled on, affirming the lower court’s decision with legal reasoning that wouldn’t pass muster in a high school civics class.
Their logic? The court claimed that California’s ban only restricts “non-expressive conduct”—in this case, contracting for the sale of firearms—so it’s magically immune to First Amendment scrutiny. And as for the Second Amendment? The court actually said that the plain text of the Second Amendment doesn’t even cover what gun show promoters are doing.
Let’s pause right there.
The Second Amendment says, in plain English, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” So how in the name of George Washington do you get from that to “but you can’t sell guns on government property”? If the government banned churches from renting public school gyms on Sundays, the left would scream about religious freedom. But ban a gun show from renting the exact same gym? Silence—or worse, applause.
The CRPA called the ruling “extremely disappointing,” which is putting it mildly. In a statement, they said the court “clearly did not understand the connection between First Amendment and Second Amendment rights.” No kidding. They also said something the anti-gun crowd really doesn’t want to hear: “CRPA will continue to protect the despised gun culture and fight back against an overreaching government that seeks to limit disfavored fundamental rights and discriminate against certain groups of people on state property.”
Let’s highlight that phrase again: despised gun culture. That’s what this is really about. These people don’t just hate guns—they hate you for owning them. They hate what you represent: independence, responsibility, and a refusal to bow down to government overreach.
In their brief to the Supreme Court, SAF made it plain that the 9th Circuit had completely ignored the Bruen decision, which set a new gold standard in 2022: any modern gun law has to be rooted in historical tradition. If there’s no long-standing historical analog for a restriction, it’s unconstitutional. It’s not rocket science.
SAF wrote: “Rejecting Petitioners’ Second Amendment claims, the Ninth Circuit abandoned the straightforward test set forth in Bruen and instead applied an interest-balancing ‘meaningful constraint’ test.” Translation: they tossed out the Supreme Court’s test and made up their own. SAF even pointed out the elephant in the room by asking, “If those subordinate courts are defying [the Supreme] Court, can there be a more compelling reason to grant a petition for certiorari?”
Well, apparently not. Because in the end, the Supreme Court took a pass.
Despite the SAF, CRPA, and even the NRA filing petitions, the justices chose to sit this one out. No explanation. No comment. Just a shrug from the bench, leaving a blatantly unconstitutional ban in place.
This is a gut punch to gun owners in California, but it’s also a wake-up call to everyone else. If you think this madness is going to stay locked behind the California state line, think again. Blue states are watching. Anti-gun governors are taking notes. If they can ban gun shows on public property in California, it’s only a matter of time before they try to do the same in Oregon, New York, or even swing states.
And let’s not ignore the precedent this sets for other rights. Today, it’s “you can’t hold a gun show at the fairgrounds.” Tomorrow it’s “you can’t hold a conservative rally” or “you can’t preach from the Bible on government-owned land.” When the government starts picking and choosing which constitutional rights are allowed where and when, that’s not freedom. That’s tyranny.
So while the Supreme Court failed to act this time, the fight is far from over. It’s up to us—gun owners, patriots, and freedom-lovers—to keep pushing, keep suing, and keep reminding these unelected elites that the Constitution still means something, even if they’re too cowardly to defend it.
