Challenge to California Suppressor Ban Moves Forward

On April 24, 2024, Gary R. Sanchez filed a lawsuit against Attorney General Rob Bonta, representing the State of California. The suit alleges California banned firearms suppressors in violation of the Second Amendment. Sanchez acted as his own attorney in the case. The district judge granted AG Bonta’s motion to dismiss the case, finding suppressors were not covered by the Second Amendment, because they were “only” accessories, not “arms”.

Sanchez appealed the case to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on September 6, 2024. The Ninth Circuit has historically been one of the circuits most openly defying Supreme Court rulings on the Second Amendment. The California Rifle and Pistol Association asked Michel & Associates, as well as Cooper & Kirk, to offer assistance to Gary Sanchez. Mr. Sanchez has accepted the offer and the Ninth Circuit has agreed to accept both Michel & Associates and Cooper & Kirk as representing Sanchez in this case.

As of April 10, 2025, both parties have filed Replacement Opening and Replacement Answering Briefs from the Plaintiff-Appellant (Sanchez) and the Appellee (AG Bonta’s office) in the case.  The arguments have become predictable.

Sanchez argues silencers are arms covered by the Second Amendment as accessories that make firearms more useful for self-defense, training, and the general safety of firearms users and others. They are in common use, the standard put forward in Heller, McDonald, and Bruen.

From the brief:

Firearm suppressors—which reduce but do not eliminate the noise emitted from a firearm—support the safe and effective use of a firearm and are commonly used for lawful purposes in the United States. They are legal to possess in the vast majority of states, and millions are possessed by law-abiding Americans for lawful purposes, including to prevent irreversible hearing damage from firearm use in training, self-defense, and hunting. Indeed, the Federal Government has described suppressors as the only truly effective means of preventing hearing damage while using a firearm. The hearing protection of a firearm outfitted with a suppressor serves critical self-defense functions, ensuring that an individual defending self, family, and home can prevent the temporary deafness or disorientation caused by a firearm blast. This allows an individual exercising the constitutional right to self-defense to hear an intruder and communicate effectively with family members and the authorities. Suppressors also facilitate training with firearms by reducing the sound of firearms and therefore protecting the hearing of everyone in a training facility.

Bonta argues that silencers are not arms, are not useful for self-defense, are not commonly used for self-defense, but are particularly dangerous. From the brief:

Silencers are neither bearable “Arms” nor integral components that are necessary for the operation of a firearm. They have no intrinsic self-defense purpose or utility in the case of confrontation. The district court’s dismissal fits squarely within a uniform consensus of the federal courts that silencers are not presumptively protected by the text of the Second Amendment. Indeed, this Court recently observed as much, noting that “a silencer” is an “optional accessor[y]” that “may be attached to a firearm without necessarily falling within the scope of the text of the Second Amendment.” 

The brief for the State of California attempts to redefine what Heller, McDonald, and Bruen have already established as the framework for determining if an arm is presumptively covered by the text of the Second Amendment.  They seek to change the standard from “in common use for lawful purposes” to “commonly used for ordinary self-defense”.

Under this newly created “standard,” the plaintiff (Sanchez) would need to prove that an arm is commonly used in self-defense by police reports, which is a nearly impossible standard.  The gambit is to define the Second Amendment out of significance.

The State of California has a difficult task in proving that silencers are not useful for self-defense, are not arms, are not in common use, but are also exceedingly dangerous.  The Court of appeals for the Ninth Circuit has been willing to contradict itself, the rule of law, and to defy the Supreme Court in order to prevent enforcement of a vigorous Second Amendment in California.

The Trump administration’s Department of Justice has recently filed a brief in the Fifth Circuit, USA v Peterson, declaring silencers are arms protected by the Second Amendment.

The two briefs represent two different visions of reality. The State of California’s vision is that the government is the source of all that is good, and the government should be all-powerful. There should not be any limitation on government power. Most people cannot make good decisions, so weapons in the hands of the people are a significant danger. In short, in the hands of ordinary people, guns are bad.

The plaintiff, Sanchez, represents the vision of a limited government bound by the limits of the Constitution and dependent on the consent of the people for its existence.  Guns in the hands of the people are a positive good to act as a limit on governmental abuse of power. More power in the hands of more people is a positive good.

This case may result in a circuit split on whether silencers are arms protected by the Second Amendment.

About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.