According to attorney Tom Grieve, an anti-gun policy has jumped from one state to six states in six years: background checks tied to ammunition purchases.
Grieve says it began in California and New York with point-of-sale checks required every single time you buy ammo.
Grieve describes the process as “instant in theory” and cheap on paper—sometimes free, sometimes a dollar or two. But he says the real-world effect is a tangle of database mismatches, address errors, and clerical failures that deny lawful buyers and add hidden costs.
Beyond California and New York, Grieve notes Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New Jersey now require a permit or license to buy ammunition, front-loading the background check into the licensing step.
That approach avoids the per-transaction ping but still imposes fees, renewals, and a paper trail that Grieve says functions like a government list of ammo buyers.
He calls the policy a favorite among “gun grabbers,” noting how quickly it’s been copied once it took root on the West Coast. In his framing, what “starts in California rarely stays in California,” especially where firearms rules are concerned.
The 99% Problem: False Positives at the Counter
Grieve highlights a statistic to show how the system behaves in practice. Out of 102,147 attempted ammo purchases blocked in California, he says only 758 were actually prohibited persons – meaning over 99% of the denials were false positives.
He portrays that number as a design failure, not a rounding error. If a background check denies the wrong person almost every time it denies anyone, he argues, the system isn’t screening; it’s stonewalling.
The consequences are predictable: range trips canceled, hunting weekends ruined, self-defense readiness delayed by bureaucracy.
Grieve’s point is simple – if a constitutional right depends on a system that malfunctions 99% of the time at the moment of use, the right is being chilled, not honored.
He doesn’t stop at tech errors. He folds in the costs, the waits, and the creeping sense that the state has placed a meter on every round that law-abiding people need to train, compete, or protect themselves.
New York State Firearms Association v. James: The Pivot Point
Grieve centers his legal analysis on New York State Firearms Association v. James, now in the Second Circuit.
He lays out the ladder: district court, circuit court, Supreme Court – and underscores how much turns on who sits on these courts.
At the district court level, Grieve says the judge accepted that buying ammunition falls under the plain text of the Second Amendment.
That should have pushed the case into the Bruen history-and-tradition review, where the government must prove a historical analogue for its restriction.
But when the case reached the Second Circuit, Grieve says the panel changed the rules. Rather than test the law against history, the court held that ammo background checks do not “meaningfully constrain” the right to keep and bear arms – so the Second Amendment isn’t even implicated at step one.
In Grieve’s telling, the court’s message was blunt: if a burden isn’t big enough in a judge’s eyes, it doesn’t count. That move, he argues, sidesteps Bruen entirely and converts a textual right into a vibes test.
He quotes the court’s framing that regulations on the “means of acquiring” arms only implicate the text if they meaningfully constrain the right. By that logic, the more you shave a right into small inconveniences, the less the Constitution has to say.
Meanwhile, the Ninth Circuit Saw It Differently
Grieve contrasts the Second Circuit with a Ninth Circuit panel that went the other way on a nearly identical California regime. There, the panel concluded ammo checks do implicate the right and, at least at that stage, violate the Second Amendment.
That mismatch matters because it signals a circuit split – the key that often unlocks Supreme Court review.
If one circuit says “you must pass Bruen” and another says “you don’t even get to Bruen,” the justices will likely be asked to resolve the standard.
Grieve underscores how this isn’t just academic. Courts that treat ammunition as outside the core of the right pave the way for more friction – fees, delays, quotas – without ever triggering the Constitution.
He warns that this reasoning spreads: from trial courts to appellate courts, and from blue states to copycat legislatures nationwide. Once normalized, it becomes policy boilerplate: “It’s just a small check, so it’s not constitutional.”
“Ammo Isn’t a Right”: The Second Circuit’s Shadow Rule
If the Second Circuit’s test stands, Grieve says, the new rule becomes “ammo isn’t a right – or at least, not enough of one to matter.” He calls it an inversion of Bruen, which set a rights-first framework: text first, history second, policy last.
Under the Second Circuit’s approach, the analysis flips. Policy comes first – judges label a burden “modest” – and only if it’s catastrophic do we ever open the history books.
Grieve’s rhetorical example lands hard: if the state can require a check and a fee for every ammo purchase, it can turn the spigot on and off at will. That’s not a background check; that’s supply-side control.
And because individual burdens seem small – two bucks here, five minutes there – courts can wave them through without ever asking whether people are actually acquiring what the right promises.
He calls that the path to death by a thousand cuts.
Rights That Depend on Ammunition Aren’t “Meaningless”
Here’s the practical truth Grieve is pressing: a gun without cartridges is a display piece.
Training, sport, and self-defense all run on a consumable that must be purchased again and again.
When government claims the power to meter each purchase, it claims the power to ration the right.
And rations can be tightened for reasons that have nothing to do with safety and everything to do with politics.
If the law turns every ammo buy into a permission check, the right becomes contingent on a database that routinely fails. That is not a “modest” inconvenience; it’s a structural one.
Bruen was meant to simplify the inquiry and discipline courts tempted to smuggle policy preferences into constitutional analysis.
Text first. If covered, the government must carry the historical burden.
The Second Circuit’s “meaningfully constrain” filter re-complicates the field and invites exactly the interest balancing Bruen rejected.
It asks judges to decide what burdens feel important rather than whether the people’s right is being conditioned.
That’s why Grieve’s call-out matters. If ammunition acquisition is pushed outside the text, the heart of the right gets left on the cutting room floor.
Where Grieve Says This Heads Next
Grieve expects this conflict to ripen quickly. With the Ninth Circuit panel reading and the Second Circuit’s contrary approach, the ingredients for a Supreme Court showdown are nearly complete.
He suggests the justices will need to answer two linked questions. First, does the plain text of the Second Amendment cover acquisition of ammunition and access to ammo stores?
Second, if yes, can states sustain point-of-sale regimes or permit-to-purchase schemes under a genuine history and tradition test? Not analogies pulled from contract law or storage ordinances, but representative historical restrictions on acquiring ammunition itself.
Grieve closes with a Patrick Henry line – “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty” – to capture the stakes. Once you concede that consumables aren’t part of the right, he warns, you’ve left the right to run dry on command.
Per Tom Grieve, ammunition background-check laws have scaled fast, producing massive false positives and predictable costs for lawful buyers.
In NYSF v. James, the Second Circuit said those burdens don’t even touch the Second Amendment, dodging Bruen by calling them “not meaningful.”
A Ninth Circuit panel, by contrast, recognized the right and found California’s regime unconstitutional at that stage, setting up the split. That divergence makes a new Supreme Court case not just possible, but likely.
If the Court says “ammo and access are covered by the text,” the burden returns to the government where Bruen placed it.
If it doesn’t, the quiet new rule will be exactly what Grieve fears: “Ammo isn’t a right,” and the right you can’t supply is a right you can’t use.
UP NEXT: “Heavily Armed” — See Which States Are The Most Strapped
Image Credit: Survival World
Americans have long debated the role of firearms, but one thing is sure — some states are far more armed than others. See where your state ranks in this new report on firearm ownership across the U.S.
Ed spent his childhood in the backwoods of Maine, where harsh winters taught him the value of survival skills. With a background in bushcraft and off-grid living, Ed has honed his expertise in fire-making, hunting, and wild foraging. He writes from personal experience, sharing practical tips and hands-on techniques to thrive in any outdoor environment. Whether it’s primitive camping or full-scale survival, Ed’s advice is grounded in real-life challenges.
