A federal appeals court just found a one-gun-a-month restriction violates the Second Amendment.

On Friday, a unanimous three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that California’s one-gun-a-month law is facially unconstitutional. It rejected the argument that America’s historic laws justify the 30-day restrictions on firearm purchases. Instead, the panel found that limiting purchases violates the right to keep and bear arms.

“We are not aware of any circumstance where government may temporarily meter the exercise of constitutional rights in this manner,” Judge Danielle J. Forrest wrote in Nguyen v. Bonta. “And we doubt anyone would think government could limit citizens’ free-speech right to one protest a month, their free-exercise right to one worship service per month, or their right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures to apply only to one search or arrest per month.”

The one-gun-a-month law, initially adopted in 1999, forced citizens of California to wait 30 days between each firearm purchase. The ruling now prevents California from enforcing that policy and prohibits states in the Ninth Circuit, including Alaska, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, from enforcing similar bans. It represents a win for the gun-rights groups, like the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), that challenged the prohibition.

California argued that the Second Amendment does not protect the right to acquire multiple arms. The state said that because its law does not prohibit the initial purchase of a firearm, it should be constitutional.

The panel disagreed.

“The Second Amendment protects the right of the people to ‘keep and bear Arms,’ plural,” Judge Forrest, a Donald Trump appointee, wrote for the panel. “This ‘guarantee[s] the individual right to possess and carry weapons.’ And not only is ‘Arms’ stated in the plural, but this term refers to more than just guns. It includes other weapons and instruments used for defense. California’s interpretation would mean that the Second Amendment only protects possession of a single weapon of any kind. There is no basis for interpreting the constitutional text in that way.”

Judges John B. Owens, a Barack Obama appointee, and Bridget S. Bade, another Trump appointee, joined the opinion. Judge Owens also wrote a brief concurring opinion where he noted the majority holding “does not address other means of restricting bulk and straw purchasing of firearms, which our nation’s tradition of firearm regulation may support.”

California argued that even if the Second Amendment does protect the right to acquire multiple firearms, the law is relevantly similar to past regulations on firearm purchases. However, the panel found the analogues the state cited weren’t good fits for its modern prohibition.

“Turning to whether California’s one-gun-a-month law is ‘relevantly similar’ to the historical landscape just described, we easily conclude that it is not,” Judge Forrest wrote. “Many of California’s proposed historical analogues impose no burden on an individual’s ability to acquire, keep, or bear arms.”

The state also pointed to 2024’s McRorey v. Garland, where a Fifth Circuit panel upheld the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act’s “enhanced” background checks on 18-to-20-year-olds, as evidence that its law should also survive scrutiny because the practical impact of the two policies is similar. Judge Forrest dismissed that comparison as well.

“The delay in the federal statute analyzed by McRorey served a presumptively valid purpose,” he wrote. “But with California’s one-gun-a-month law, delay itself is the purpose.”

The panel ultimately concluded the law can’t stand.

“California’s law is facially unconstitutional because possession of multiple firearms and the ability to acquire firearms through purchase without meaningful constraints are protected by the Second Amendment, and California’s law is not supported by our nation’s tradition of firearms regulation,” Judge Forrest wrote.

Gun-rights activists celebrated the ruling.

“We have a right to buy more than one gun at a time just as we have a right to buy more than one bible at a time,” Brandom Combs, the Firearms Policy Coalition’s (FPC) president, said in a statement. “FPC is proud to have secured the rights of peaceable people and will continue to fight forward until we eliminate immoral laws like this everywhere.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s (D.) office did not respond to a request for comment on whether he plans to seek an en banc rehearing of the case.