Firearms groups have filed a widely anticipated legal challenge against a California gun law modeled after Texas’ vigilante antiabortion legislation.
Gov. Gavin Newsom explicitly called out the Texas law in July when he signed Senate Bill 1327, which allows private citizens to sue the makers and distributors of firearms that are banned in California. The lawsuit filed Monday targets a provision — also modeled after the Texas legislation — that requires those challenging the state’s gun laws to pay legal fees if the challenge fails.
Section 1021.11 of the Code of Civil Procedure, added by SB 1327, would make attorneys and plaintiffs seeking to challenge gun laws or restrictions “jointly and severally liable to pay the attorney’s fees and costs of the prevailing party.”
Plaintiffs including San Diego firearms dealer Gunfighter Tactical, the San Diego County Gun Owners PAC and the Second Amendment Foundation allege in their lawsuit that the statute regarding legal fees is unconstitutional and “seeks to suppress firearms-related litigation.”
Newsom had called for the legislation after the passage of a Texas law that allowed citizens to sue anyone who aids and abets abortions.
“If they are going to use this framework to put women’s lives at risk, we are going to use it to save people’s lives here in the state of California,” Newsom said when he signed the bill. “That’s the spirit, the principle, behind this law.”
The statute would take effect Jan. 1.
In the complaint, the plaintiffs wrote that they are already challenging California’s ban on assault weapons.
“Section 1021.11, however, forces Plaintiffs to litigate their assault-weapons challenge under the threat of a potentially ruinous fee award,” the plaintiffs said.
The plaintiffs allege that the provision on legal fees violates the 1st Amendment by singling out “firearms advocates’ protected activity and seeks to choke off their access to the courts.”
“California adopted this fee-shifting scheme as a response to — and apparently in retaliation for — a similar fee-shifting scheme that Texas enacted in connection with abortion regulations,” the plaintiffs said in the complaint. “But tit-for-tat is not a rational or permissible justification for the classifications in this case.”
SB 1327 was expected to draw numerous challenges from gun rights advocates after it was passed. The law would be invalidated if the Texas abortion law it is modeled after is also nulled.
After the Supreme Court declined to block Texas’ law in a 5-4 decision in December, some gun rights advocates worried Texas-style methods could be turned against firearms.