A Ninth Circuit three-judge panel handed California a decisive First Amendment defeat on July 7, 2025, in Junior Sports Magazines, Inc. v. Bonta, No. 24-4050 — striking down the state’s gun advertising ban in its entirety and ordering the district court to issue a preliminary injunction against all of Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 22949.80. It is a major First Amendment victory, and it carries a lesson every Second Amendment supporter needs to internalize.
What California’s Law Actually Said
California enacted Assembly Bill 2571, codified at Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 22949.80, which prohibited “firearm industry members” from advertising, marketing, or arranging for any communication “offering or promoting any firearm-related product in a manner attractive to minors.” Subsection (b) separately barred the industry from using or compiling minors’ personal information for marketing. Violations carried civil penalties of up to $25,000 per violation, enforced by Attorney General Rob Bonta.
In 2022, Junior Sports Magazines — publisher of the youth-oriented Junior Shooters magazine — along with the Second Amendment Foundation, the California Rifle & Pistol Association (CRPA), Gun Owners of California, the California Youth Shooting Sports Association, and other plaintiffs filed suit arguing the statute unconstitutionally burdened free speech under the First and Fourteenth Amendments and moved for a preliminary injunction.
The District Court’s Games — and the First Ninth Circuit Win
The Ninth Circuit already addressed this law once. In Junior Sports Magazines, Inc. v. Bonta, No. 22-56090 (9th Cir. Sept. 13, 2023), a panel held that the statute likely violated the First Amendment’s commercial speech protections — because California permits minors, under supervision, to possess and use firearms for hunting and other lawful activities, the law restricts truthful speech about a lawful product. The 2023 panel reversed the district court’s denial of a preliminary injunction and remanded for further proceedings.
On remand, the Central District of California played games. In a June 18, 2024 order, the district court enjoined only subsection (a) of the statute — the advertising ban — but declined to enjoin subsection (b), the data-compilation prohibition. The district court’s theory was that the Ninth Circuit’s 2023 ruling was narrow and hadn’t addressed the whole statute.
That interpretation was wrong, and the Ninth Circuit said so clearly.
”You Ignorant…” — The Ninth Circuit Sets the District Court Straight
The July 7, 2025 memorandum disposition is the circuit’s answer to the district court’s hair-splitting. Reading page six of this opinion, I honestly could hear Dan Aykroyd’s voice from the classic Saturday Night Live “Point/Counterpoint” skit — “district court, you ignorant…” — because the Ninth Circuit could not have been clearer.
The panel wrote that the 2023 prior opinion “addressed the statute as a whole and not just subdivision A,” that the court had begun “by framing the parties’ dispute over the entire statute,” and referred to the statute’s subdivisions as “parts of the integral whole.” The message was unambiguous: the entire statute — every subsection — is unconstitutional. The court reversed the district court’s partial denial and remanded with instructions to issue a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the entirety of § 22949.80.
This is the Ninth Circuit doing what the Supreme Court has increasingly demanded of lower courts: get it right, follow the ruling, stop trying to whittle down a clear appellate mandate.
California’s Self-Inflicted Wound — The Spiderweb Principle in Action
Here is the part that matters beyond the immediate win. The Ninth Circuit’s analysis directly cited California’s own discounted hunting licenses for minors as evidence that the state itself “encourages the demand for gun use by minors.” That factual reality — embedded in California state law — undermined the government’s ability to claim a direct and material interest in suppressing truthful commercial speech about firearms to young people.
This is the spiderweb principle I talk about constantly. When you take a legal position — in litigation, legislation, or policy — you are pulling on one strand of a massive web, and every other strand moves. California’s hunting-license discount program and its gun advertising ban existed in separate policy silos. Nobody connected the dots. Nobody asked: “What happens if we’re litigating our advertising ban and opposing counsel pulls out our hunting license discount?” The answer is what just happened — that single strand destroyed their entire case.
I raise this not to pile on California, but because the same trap exists for Second Amendment advocates. Every position taken in this space ripples outward. That is precisely why I sometimes push back when gun-rights commentators stake out positions that sound satisfying in the moment but will metastasize into bad precedent down the road. The law does not compartmentalize the way people assume it does.
What This Means Going Forward
This is a genuine, significant First Amendment victory. Congratulations are due to the Second Amendment Foundation, the California Rifle & Pistol Association, Gun Owners of California, the California Youth Shooting Sports Association, and all the other plaintiffs who saw this through multiple rounds of litigation.
The practical effect is that California’s entire gun advertising ban — both the marketing prohibition and the data-compilation rule — is now under preliminary injunction. The state cannot enforce § 22949.80 in any part while the litigation continues on the merits.
The First Amendment and the Second Amendment are not separate fights. You cannot defend the right to keep and bear arms without defending the right to speak honestly about firearms, to publish magazines about the shooting sports, and to market lawful products to lawful consumers — including young hunters and competitive shooters. California tried to wall off that speech, and the Ninth Circuit just tore the wall down.
This article is based on analysis by Professor Mark W. Smith, constitutional attorney and Host of the Four Boxes Diner 2nd Amendment channel. Watch the original video here. This does not constitute legal advice.