California’s crackdown on ‘less-lethal’ weapons sparks 2A lawsuit targeting Newsom administration
FIRST ON FOX: A company that sells self-defense weapons brought a lawsuit on Wednesday against Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, alleging that California, a state heavy on gun restrictions, was violating...
By Fox News · Fox News
FIRST ON FOX: A company that sells self-defense weapons brought a lawsuit on Wednesday against Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom , alleging that California, a state heavy on gun restrictions, was violating the Second Amendment because it also hindered people from buying less-lethal self-defense products. Bryna Technologies CEO Bryan Ganz told Fox News Digital his company's weapons, which look like revolvers but shoot powerful chemical irritants rather than lethal bullets, were legal in all 50 states. But California, Ganz said, blocked sales of Byrna's ammunition and launchers. "It’s easier for a Californian to get a license to carry a lethal weapon than to carry a Byrna with chemical irritant rounds," Ganz said. "So they’re clearly driving some people to purchase lethal weapons, so I would say that we probably have the support of both people on the right side and the left side of the 2A debate." DOJ SUES LA SHERIFF’S OFFICE IN ITS FIRST-EVER GUN-RIGHTS LAWSUIT OVER CARRY DELAYS The complaint, filed in federal court in the Southern District of California, compared Byrna weapons to Tasers and stun guns, which gained Second Amendment protections in high-profile Supreme Court cases over the past two decades. A 2008 case, District of Columbia v. Heller, found that the right to bear arms "extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding." A 2016 case, Caetano v. Massachusetts, addressed stun guns specifically, finding that a lower court improperly held that a woman did not have the right to own the more modern-day weapon under the Second Amendment. California state law bans the purchase of "tear gas" and categorizes Bryna's non-lethal ammunition as that. NRA SUES CALIFORNIA OVER BAN ON GLOCK-STYLE FIREARMS: 'VIOLATES THE SECOND AMENDMENT' "Were it not for the bans being challenged here, Byrna would sell its pepper projectile launchers in California to a market of hundreds of thousands of…