[JURIST] A group of California gun dealers filed a lawsuit [complaint, PDF] in federal court Monday challenging a state law that limits their right to advertise. According to California Penal Code section 26820 [text] it is unlawful for a gun dealer to display an advertisement outside of its store windows. The gun dealers argue that they have not only a right to sell firearms under the Second Amendment but that the First Amendment “protects truthful, nonmisleading commercial speech promoting lawful products or services, but especially when the products or services are themselves protected by other constitutional rights.” The complaint states that the prohibition of store advertisements is speaker-based discrimination on protected expression, which imposes a large burden on dealers to conduct business. The plaintiffs are seeking for the California law to be deemed unconstitutional and a preliminary injunction to cease its enforcement throughout litigation.

The California law against advertising guns allows the state to regulate the sale of guns. Currently Second Amendment rights [JURIST op-ed] are a controversial political issue in the US. In June a judge for the US District Court for the District of Colorado [official website] upheld two state statutes [JURIST report] that expanded mandatory background checks and banned high capacity magazines. Also in June the US Supreme Court [official website] ruled that the government can enforce a ban [JURIST report] on purchasing a gun for someone else, even if that other person is lawfully allowed to have a gun. In April a trial judge for the New York Supreme Court [official website] dismissed a lawsuit [JURIST report] challenging the state’s strict gun laws. In February the US Supreme Court denied review [JURIST report] of three gun rights cases without comment.