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 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.”

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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.

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“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 purchasers seeking a less-lethal alternative defensive weapon to firearms,” Byrna’s attorneys wrote.

Ganz told Fox News Digital that New York, the other state obstructing sales of the company’s less-lethal weapons, would be the next to face a lawsuit if the one in California is successful.

The company bills itself as the leading maker of “pepper projectile” launchers, weapons designed to incapacitate an attacker for up to 45 minutes but not kill them.

Ganz said part of Byrna’s Second Amendment argument included that the self-defense products were in common usage.

“There are over three-quarters of a million Byrnas that have been sold over the last six years, so they’re in very common usage,” Ganz said.

In recent years, Newsom has signed dozens of bills designed to rein in gun purchases and possession, including in 2023 when he signed nearly two dozen bills that included expanding background checks on gun purchasers and further restricting who could own a firearm.

Fox News Digital reached out to Newsom’s office for comment on the lawsuit.