Judge overturns statewide ban on gun shows, orders O.C. fairgrounds to resume bookings

It’s been two years since the Orange County fairgrounds hosted a gun show — due to a law prohibiting firearm and ammunition sales on the state-owned property that opened the door to a statewide ban — but that could soon change.

A federal judge this week granted a preliminary injunction overturning Senate Bill 264, which prohibited gun shows at the Costa Mesa fairgrounds beginning in 2022, and Senate Bill 915, which extended the prohibitions to all state-owned lands this January.

The order halts the statewide ban and calls upon operators of the county fairgrounds to immediately resume scheduling legal gun shows at the site.

Authored by state Sen. Dave Min (D-Irvine), the bills took aim at gun shows on county fairgrounds, which function under the state as districted agricultural associations. They bar any state officer, employee or license holder from allowing or contracting for the sale of any firearm or ammunition on that property.

Speaking in 2021, Min described a “gun show loophole,” in which individuals could obtain firearms through straw sales, by purchasing unregistered ghost gun parts or by theft from careless vendors.

“The state should not be profiting off of what is essentially blood money,” he said. “I think that’s an important moral line to draw in the sand right now.”

But a group of gun advocates led by Utah-based company Crossroads of the West, which has hosted gun shows at the Costa Mesa fairgrounds for nearly 30 years, claimed in an August 2022 lawsuit filed with the U.S. District Court the bills infringe upon their constitutionally protected rights.

“[Plaintiffs] attend and participate in the Crossroads gun show to engage in First Amendment activities that are both necessary and essential to the open, robust, and lawful exercise of their Second Amendment rights,” the original complaint states.

The document describes how prohibiting the sale of legal firearms and, further, preventing Crossroads from hosting “sales-free” gun shows, violated participants’ and vendors’ collective free speech and commercial speech and their right to assemble.

Named defendants in the case include Gov. Gavin Newsom, Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, the Orange County Fair & Event Center (32nd District Agricultural Assn.) and Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer, among others.

U.S. District Court Judge John W. Holcomb, in a ruling issued Monday granting the plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction, contended that Min’s legislation did little to prevent the spread of illegal firearms, instead prohibiting public forums where people assemble to learn more about gun safety.

He further indicated that state laws already preclude the immediate purchase of guns — requiring customers to undergo a background check and waiting period before picking up firearms at area stores.

“California’s interest in stopping crimes committed with illegal weapons, as important as it is, cannot justify prohibiting the complete sale of lawful firearms at gun shows, especially when those same firearms are available for purchase at regular gun stores,” Holcomb wrote.

The judge agreed with petitioners that legislation was overly broad, did not meaningfully restrict an individual’s ability to acquire firearms or possess them and provided a pretextual means for banning all aspects of “gun culture.”

Holcomb declared defendants were to restrain themselves from “engaging in, committing or performing, directly or indirectly, by any means whatsoever, any enforcement of” the two laws.

He also ordered the OC Fair & Event Center to allow Crossroads of the West to reserve dates for future gun shows at the county fairgrounds as it would any other event promoter. OCFEC officials said Wednesday they had no comment on the litigation.

Min, however, responded in a statement Monday that Holcomb, appointed to the federal court in 2020 on the recommendation of then President Donald Trump, had abused his judicial authority by blocking “a major deterrent for preventing the unmitigated flow of firearms” into California communities.

“This decision would force the State of California to conduct activities we do not want, which jeopardize the safety of our constituents, on our own state-owned property and is the very essence of federal overreach that conservatives have so long decried,” he said.

“I am confident this decision will be reversed on appeal, and pray that this totally unwarranted injunction does not lead to the deaths of more innocent gun violence victims in the interim.”

A representative from Min’s office said Tuesday it would be up to Bonta to file an appeal with the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.