AB1406 allows the California Department of Justice to delay a firearms background check up to 30 days if “additional research” is required to determine a person’s eligibility or by order of the Attorney General in the event of an “emergency.”
The Assembly passed AB1406 on September 11, 2023, by a vote of 67 to 9. We have assigned minuses to the ayes because this bill is just another example of California disparaging the rights of law-abiding citizens by hindering, through warrantless inquiry and delay, their ability to freely purchase and receive a firearm—without the burden of providing probable cause or proof of criminal activity. Nevertheless, the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment prevent “any State” from depriving or denying “any person” of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Moreover, the Second Amendment guarantees that the unalienable “right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” regardless of an “emergency.”