“Confirmed Judges, Confirmed Fears” is a blog series documenting the harmful impact of President Trump’s judges on Americans’ rights and liberties. It includes judges nominated in both his first and second terms.
Judge Danielle Forrest, who was nominated by Donald Trump to the Ninth Circuit court of appeals, wrote an opinion joined by Trump judge Bridget Bade affirming a lower court ruling that struck down a California law limiting most residents to purchasing one firearm per month. Obama nominee John Owens wrote a concurring opinion in the June 2025 decision in Nguyen v Bonta.
What happened in this case?
Since1999, California has had a law that generally prohibits people from purchasing more than one firearm per month, intended to combat “straw” purchases of guns for people who are under age or otherwise cannot buy firearms. In 2020, a number of gun owners and groups filed a federal lawsuit, claiming that the law violates the Second Amendment.
In 2024, a federal district court granted summary judgment to the challengers and ruled the law unconstitutional. The state appealed the case to the Ninth Circuit.
How did Trump judges Forrest and Bade and the Ninth Circuit rule and why is the result harmful?
Judge Forrest’s opinion agreed with the lower court. She maintained that the “plain text” of the Second Amendment guarantees the right to purchase “arms”, not just a single weapon. Limiting purchases to one per month, she went on, improperly imposes a “meaningful constraint” on purchasing fireamnsfirearms. The law was not supported by “history and tradition”, she went on, and Supreme Court precedent supports the invalidity of the law. Judge Owens concurred in the decision, but wrote separately to point out that other methods of restricting “straw” purchasing of guns may be consistent with “our nation’s tradition of firearm regulation.”
The state had argued that the law merely delays or slows down a person’s ability to buy even multiple firearms, and that it is important in order to address “unprecedented social concerns” such as straw purchases and gun trafficking that “did not exist” in colonial times as they do today. The ruling may well impede the ability of California and other states to combat such problems. In addition, the ruling illustrates the importance of our federal courts to health, welfare and justice and the significance of having fair-minded judges on the federal bench.