In its first major Second Amendment action of 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice has taken a stunning position—supporting gun owners in a high-profile case challenging California’s ammunition background check system.

In Rhode v. Bonta, now before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the DOJ filed an amicus brief arguing that California’s requirement for a background check every time ammunition is purchased is unconstitutional, historically unprecedented, and intentionally designed to frustrate the exercise of the Second Amendment.

The DOJ did not mince words, describing California’s system as “onerous,” “cumbersome,” and “unnecessarily complicated.” Under the law, gun owners must navigate multiple approval pathways, pay repeated fees, and deal with approvals that can expire in as little as 18 hours. Tens of thousands of lawful gun owners are wrongly denied each year due to bureaucratic errors—not criminal disqualifications.

Most importantly, the DOJ squarely rejected California’s claim that ammunition regulations fall outside Second Amendment protection. The brief makes a simple but devastating point: without ammunition, firearms are useless, and a right to keep and bear arms necessarily includes the right to acquire ammunition.

Applying the Supreme Court’s Bruen framework, the DOJ concluded that buying ammunition is protected conduct and that California failed to identify any historical tradition supporting ammunition background checks. No such laws existed during the Founding, Reconstruction, or early 20th century—making California’s system constitutionally indefensible.

The DOJ also warned that constitutional violations do not require outright bans. Fees, delays, paperwork, and bureaucratic exhaustion can all amount to unlawful infringement when designed to discourage lawful conduct.

If the Ninth Circuit adopts this reasoning, the impact will extend far beyond California, threatening ammunition permit schemes and transaction-by-transaction controls nationwide. More importantly, it sends a clear message: governments cannot use administrative warfare to erode constitutional rights.

For gun owners across the country, this filing represents one of the strongest pro-Second Amendment positions taken by the DOJ in years—and a potential turning point in how courts evaluate regulatory abuse of fundamental rights.