California’s 11% excise tax on firearms and ammunition is now facing a serious constitutional challenge, and this time the argument is being put to the court in a posture that could bring a decisive ruling without waiting for a full trial.
In a motion for summary judgment filed in Poway Weapons & Gear v. Gonzales, Poway Weapons & Gear and Sacramento Gun Range are asking the Sacramento County Superior Court to rule that AB 28’s tax scheme violates the Second and Fourteenth Amendments.
At the center of this case is a question every gun owner should be asking: Can a hostile state deliberately price the Second Amendment out of reach for ordinary Americans simply because the people in power despise the right itself?
California’s AB 28 slapped an 11% excise tax on the retail sale of firearms, firearm precursor parts, and ammunition starting July 1, 2024. Technically, Sacramento put the burden on licensed dealers, manufacturers, and ammunition vendors. In reality, everyone knew from day one who was really going to pay for it: the law-abiding gun buyer standing at the counter. That is exactly how it has played out, with dealers adding the charge as a line item on receipts. So while politicians can pretend this is just a tax on industry, ordinary Californians are the ones getting hit with yet another deliberate attempt to make lawful gun ownership more expensive, more burdensome, and harder to exercise.
California will try to hide behind the same tired bureaucratic excuse that this is somehow just a tax on businesses. That is nonsense.
When the state deliberately targets the sale of constitutionally protected firearms and ammunition, knowing full well the bill will be dumped on the backs of the very people trying to lawfully buy them, it is not innocently regulating commerce. It is putting a price tag on the exercise of a constitutional right.
The plaintiffs argue that under Heller, McDonald, and especially Bruen, the Second Amendment does not just protect some hollow, paper right that kicks in only after a firearm is already in your safe. It protects the ability of law-abiding Americans to actually acquire the firearms and ammunition needed to exercise that right in the first place. A right to keep and bear arms is worthless if the government can choke it off at the gun counter by piling targeted taxes and financial barriers onto the very tools the Constitution protects.
California is not going for an outright gun ban here because it knows that would draw immediate fire in court. Instead, it is using the same backdoor playbook anti-gun governments always reach for when a direct attack is harder to pull off. Jack up the cost, bury people in paperwork, and pile on enough regulatory friction that exercising the Second Amendment becomes more difficult, more expensive, and less within reach for ordinary citizens. For years, hostile states have tried to smother gun rights from every angle while pretending they are not really attacking the right itself.
The motion leans heavily on a principle the Supreme Court has recognized in other contexts for decades: government cannot single out the exercise of a constitutional right for special taxation.
The brief points to cases involving the press, voting, and religious exercise, where courts rejected attempts to impose targeted taxes on protected conduct. The reasoning is straightforward and powerful. The state cannot put a special tax on newspapers because it dislikes the press. It cannot put a tax on voting because it wants fewer people to cast ballots. It cannot demand payment as the price of exercising a constitutional liberty and then pretend that liberty is still fully intact.
California would never dare announce an 11% surcharge on attending church, publishing a newspaper, or voting in an election. But when it comes to gun rights, politicians in the state still act as though the normal constitutional rules are optional. That is exactly the mindset the Supreme Court was supposed to shut down when it reminded lower courts and hostile states alike that the Second Amendment is not a second-class right.
SAF’s Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack drove the point home, framing California’s tax for what it really is: an attempt to put a price tag on the exercise of a constitutional right.
“Fundamental rights cannot be hidden by the state behind a paywall,” said SAF Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack. “The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that conduct protected by a constitutional right cannot, for any reason, be singled out for special taxation. The right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment is meaningless if the government has the power to prevent the acquisition of arms and ammunition in the first place. And the power to tax is exactly that – the power to make unavailable. The present tax rate itself is immaterial, the authority to tax a fundamental right at 11% is the authority to tax it 150%. And anyone even superficially aware of California lawmakers’ tendencies know how much they love taxes and hate your gun rights.”
Firearms Policy Coalition President Brandon Combs made the same point in even blunter terms, arguing that California’s tax scheme is unconstitutional and deliberately punitive.
“This unlawful tax scheme is designed to destroy the right to keep and bear arms, and California cannot be allowed to get away with it. You cannot specially tax the exercise of a constitutional right – full stop. If courts allow an 11% tax today, nothing stops them from making it 50% or 100% tomorrow. We are suing to end this direct attack on the rights of peaceable people, and we intend to win,” said FPC President Brandon Combs.
That is why California should get nowhere with the argument that it is only 11%, as if a smaller infringement somehow stops being an infringement. The problem is not the exact number. The problem is that the state is claiming the power to single out a constitutional right for special financial punishment in the first place. Once government gets away with taxing a protected liberty just to make people think twice about exercising it, there is no real limiting principle left. The power to tax a right becomes the power to destroy.
Poway Weapons & Gear remitted $34,666 for the third quarter of 2024 alone, then continued paying significant sums quarter after quarter. Sacramento Gun Range did the same, paying $24,640 for that same quarter before later making additional quarterly payments in the tens of thousands. Those are real financial hits on ordinary gun businesses, and because those costs get passed straight through to the counter, they become direct burdens on law-abiding Californians trying to legally buy firearms and ammunition.
If this tax survives, there is every reason to expect other anti-gun states to copy the model. Lawmakers hostile to the right to keep and bear arms are always looking for new ways to discourage ownership without running headlong into a direct ban that will get them hauled into court. A targeted tax fits that strategy perfectly. Dress it up as public safety, assign the revenue to some politically marketable fund, and then pretend you are not really burdening a right even while you make it more expensive to exercise.
“California is the primordial ooze from which new novel Second Amendment infringement tactics are born,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “If this tax is allowed to stand, it’s only a matter of time before every non-2A friendly state across America adopts similar legislation. California taxes gas to dissuade people from driving and cigarettes to dissuade people from smoking, so it’s no secret what the state doing here: taxing guns to dissuade people from exercising their rights.”
This is not about whether California can squeeze more money out of gun stores and gun buyers. It is about whether a hostile state government can use taxation as a weapon against a constitutional liberty it dislikes.
The plaintiffs also come into court with a cleaner posture than a lot of challengers do. They paid the tax, filed refund requests, and went through the administrative process, only to be told that the tax agency lacked authority to grant relief on constitutional grounds unless a higher court had already struck the law down. In other words, the agency effectively admitted the real question has to be answered by the judiciary. That is where the case now stands. The dealers exhausted the process and are now asking the court to decide the legal issue directly.
If California can put the Second Amendment behind a paywall, other states will try it too.
And if courts bless that strategy, then the right to keep and bear arms will remain on the books while being steadily priced further out of reach for the very people it was meant to protect.
About Duncan Johnson:
Duncan Johnson is a lifelong firearms enthusiast and unwavering defender of the Second Amendment—where “shall not be infringed” means exactly what it says. A graduate of George Mason University, he enjoys competing in local USPSA and multi-gun competitions whenever he’s not covering the latest in gun rights and firearm policy. Duncan is a regular contributor to AmmoLand News and serves as part of the editorial team responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.
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