Shoddy Science: Court Invalidates California’s Handgun Ad Ban on 1st Amendment Ground

By NRAHQ

Opinion

Fairfax, VA – -(Ammoland.com)- Earlier this month, a federal court invalidated California’s ban on premises advertising relating to handguns (but not other firearms), disparaging the state’s proffered justification for the law as nothing more than “mere speculation and conjecture.”

The law, California Penal Code § 26820, was enacted almost a century ago and prohibits licensed gun dealers from displaying handguns, imitation handguns, or any “placard advertising the sale or other transfer” of a handgun in any part of the dealer’s premises, inside or out, if it “can readily be seen from the outside.” The government’s rationale is that the ban diminishes handgun-related suicides and crimes by prohibiting ads that would “target passersby who are otherwise indifferent and induce them to enter a firearm retailer and buy a handgun.”

California’s Department of Justice Bureau of Firearms construes the law as requiring dealers to remove any depictions of a handgun that can be viewed from the exterior of the shop, including things like a three-dimensional metal sign shaped like a revolver and hanging in a dealership’s parking lot, and a “logo depicting an outline of …Read the Rest

Source:: AmmoLand