SAN DIEGO (CN) — The Ninth Circuit on Wednesday agreed to allow California to share personal information about gun owners with gun violence researchers, affirming a federal judge's ruling that the law doesn’t violate privacy rights nor the Second Amendment.
“Permitting gun owners’ information to be shared under strict privacy protection protocols for legitimate research purposes does not restrict conduct covered by the plain text of the Second Amendment,” Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Mary M. Schroeder, a Jimmy Carter appointee, wrote for the panel.
Under Assembly Bill 173, which Governor Gavin Newsom signed in 2021, the state must share gun owners' personal data and purchasing records with researchers at the University of California, Davis who study gun violence prevention, shooting accidents and suicides.
The state attorney general can share the information with other research institutions, too; currently, the only other school with which the state shares the data is a research institution at Stanford University.
“Enabling rigorous empirical research is crucial as we strive to combat the scourge of gun violence within our state,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement after the ruling. “The Ninth Circuit’s decision marks a significant victory in our endeavor to curb gun violence in California. The information shared under AB 173 is pivotal: It enables groundbreaking research that supports informed policymaking aimed at reducing and preventing firearm violence and saving lives.”
Five anonymous California gun owners sued the state claiming the law irreparably harmed their Second Amendment rights and their privacy rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.
In January 2023, U.S. District Judge Larry Burns rejected their argument and found the gun owners failed to state a claim, granting Bonta's request to dismiss the lawsuit. The anonymous gun owners then appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit.
According to the Ninth Circuit panel, the biographical information that the California Department of Justice is required to collect and share with law enforcement — address, place of birth, telephone number, occupation, sex and any legal aliases, as well as concealed carry status — is not intimate enough to fall under privacy protections. That means the plaintiffs failed to state a Fourteenth Amendment claim over the state sharing the information with UC Davis researchers.
The claim that the plaintiff's Second Amendment rights were violated, and that they were afraid of public exposure and harassment that discouraged them from buying guns, didn’t fly with the panel, either.
The law in question only regulates the California Department of Justice's actions — not those plaintiffs or other gun owners.
"Permitting gun owners’ information to be shared under strict privacy protection protocols for legitimate research purposes does not restrict conduct covered by the plain text of the Second Amendment," Judge Schroeder wrote.
Their fear of harassment or public embarrassment was speculative, she added, since the colleges that get gun owners' information aren't allowed to share it with anyone else.
Finally, the plaintiffs' claim that the law is unconstitutionally retroactive because it requires state authorities to share information gun owners that was provided before the law went into effect didn’t pass muster, the panel ruled, because a law can only be unconstitutionally retroactive if it forces new consequences on things that already happened. California’s law doesn’t force any new legal consequences on past behavior; it just allows the state to share information with academics, Schroeder said.
The plaintiffs' attorney did not return a request for comment.
U.S. Circuit Judge Patrick Bumatay, a Donald Trump appointee and U.S. Circuit Judge Salvador Mendoza Jr., a Joe Biden appointee, rounded out the panel of judges.
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