## Facts

- San Francisco enacted a safe-storage ordinance requiring handguns kept in a residence to be stored in a locked container or disabled with a DOJ-approved trigger lock unless carried on the person by someone over 18; violations carried potential fines and jail time.
- San Francisco also enacted an ordinance banning the sale within the city of certain ammunition, including hollow-point and other expanding or fragmenting rounds.
- Law-abiding handgun owners and gun-rights organizations sued, alleging both ordinances violated the Second Amendment.
- Plaintiffs sought a preliminary injunction to stop enforcement while the case proceeded.
- The federal district court denied preliminary injunctive relief, and plaintiffs appealed to the Ninth Circuit.

## Issues

1. Whether the handgun safe-storage requirement for in-home storage, with an exception for carrying on the person, violates the Second Amendment.
2. Whether the citywide ban on the sale (but not possession) of hollow-point and similar ammunition within San Francisco violates the Second Amendment.
3. Whether plaintiffs showed a likelihood of success on the merits sufficient to justify a preliminary injunction.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the denial of a preliminary injunction.
- The court held both ordinances regulate conduct within the Second Amendment’s scope but do not severely burden the core right of armed self-defense in the home.
- The court applied intermediate scrutiny to both regulations.
- The court concluded the safe-storage ordinance is substantially related to important public-safety interests, including reducing accidental shootings, suicides, and theft of unsecured firearms.
- The court concluded the ammunition-sales restriction is a reasonable fit with the city’s interest in reducing the lethality of shootings and does not eliminate access because purchase outside the city and possession in the city remained lawful.
- Because the ordinances were likely constitutional, plaintiffs failed to show likelihood of success on the merits under the preliminary-injunction standard.

## Legal Principles

- Second Amendment challenges in the Ninth Circuit used a two-step approach: (1) determine whether the law burdens protected conduct; (2) if so, apply an appropriate level of scrutiny based on the degree of burden.
- Intermediate scrutiny applies where a firearms regulation limits but does not destroy the core Second Amendment right, leaving adequate alternatives for lawful self-defense.
- Under intermediate scrutiny, the government must show an important objective and a substantial relationship (or reasonable fit) between the regulation and that objective; the fit need not be perfect.
- A restriction on the manner of storing handguns in the home may be upheld when it does not bar possession and permits ready self-defense through lawful alternatives (e.g., carrying the handgun on the person).
- A restriction on local commercial sales of certain ammunition may be upheld when it does not prohibit possession or use and does not foreclose acquisition through lawful channels outside the regulated area.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit upheld San Francisco’s handgun safe-storage requirement and its ban on in-city sales of hollow-point and similar ammunition, applying intermediate scrutiny and concluding both measures were sufficiently tailored to important public-safety interests; therefore, plaintiffs were not entitled to preliminary injunctive relief.


Jackson v. City & Cnty. of San Francisco, 746 F.3d 953 (9th Cir. 2014)