California Dump Truck Owners Association (CDTOA) - California Construction Trucking Association (CCTA)

AB-962 pre-empted by federal laws that regulate interstate shipping

(Redwood City, Calif., July 29, 2010) – The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) has joined with The Calguns Foundation, the National Rifle Association, the Folsom Shooting Club and two individual truckers to challenge California’s soon to be implemented ban on the interstate shipment of handgun ammunition to California.

Last year, Governor Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 962 into law, which goes into effect February 2011.  The law will criminalize the delivery and transfer of handgun ammunition not done in face-to-face transactions.  It also requires shipping companies to implement procedures to determine whether the recipient of a package containing handgun ammunition is covered by one of the exceptions in the law before delivering handgun ammunition in California. This places a big burden on the shippers, and will make shipping ammunition to California much more difficult and likely more expensive.

The lawsuit, filed in Sacramento’s Eastern District Federal Court, alleges that these provisions of the law violate the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, which prohibits states and local municipalities from interfering with carriers’ rates, routes or services.

“This isn’t about firearms or ammunition. Congress made an important decision to keep motor carriers free from a patchwork of burdensome regulation as we move America’s goods to market,” said Jim Johnston, OOIDA President.  “We cannot allow California to subject our members to criminal liability where the state has no right to meddle.”

California depends on the efficient movement of goods by carrier into California. “California legislators have become accustomed to trampling the rights of California’s gun community. However, this time they’ve taken that recklessness into a field that will hurt every Californian. AB-962 will slow down everyone who orders goods online or buys goods at a retail store,” said Gene Hoffman, Chairman of The Calguns Foundation.

In February 2008, a unanimous United States Supreme Court struck down Maine’s directly analogous law regarding the delivery of cigarettes to Maine in Rowe v. New Hampshire Motor Transport.

“It does not matter what the State’s goal is or how honorable they believe their cause is,” stated lead attorney, Jason Davis of Davis & Associates. “Rowe made it clear that a state cannot interfere with a carrier’s rates, routes, or services. AB-962 does just that.”

“At Sacramento Valley Shooting Center, we currently provide handgun ammunition sales to the public,” said Jim Bass, President of Folsom Shooting Club. “Should the shipping restrictions in AB-962 take effect, we have no way to prove to shippers that we are a handgun ammunition vendor under the law.”

This case follows a Second Amendment and Commerce Clause challenge titled State Ammunition v. Lindley, and a California State Court Challenge to the vagueness and other requirements of AB-962 brought by the NRA-CRPA Foundation Legal Action Project.

The delivery prohibitions of AB-962 take effect in February 2011.  Plaintiffs in this case will be moving quickly to obtain an injunction before the shipping portions of the law take effect.

The case is filed as OOIDA et. al v. Lindley, U.S. Dist. Ct. E.D. C.A. 2:10-at-01095. A copy of the complaint is available from OOIDA - CGA - NRA - Lawsuit. And is attached above.