Judge won’t order AG Rob Bonta to stop sharing gun owners’ information

A federal judge in San Diego refused to issue an emergency order to prevent Attorney General Rob Bonta from sharing gun owners' personal information with the California Firearm Violence Research Center at UC Davis and any other bona fide research institution.

Lawyers for unnamed gun owners said disclosure of personal information required to buy guns and ammunition or obtain a concealed weapons permit violates the right to privacy and chills gun rights. The gun violence research group is just a ruse for putting that information into the public domain, they said.

U.S. District Judge Larry A. Burns wrote in his order Thursday that the temporary restraining order the plaintiffs sought are reserved for emergency measures for preserving the status quo until a fuller hearing on injunctive relief, requiring adequate proof that plaintiffs will suffer irreparable harm without it.

"There is no emergency here," he wrote.

The judge pointed out that the gun owners did not immediately act when the law was passed that gave the gun violence research group access to their information. And anyway, the judge wrote, the researchers have already been provided with some of that information and there are safeguards in place to prevent them from sharing it with authorized parties.

"AB 173 was enacted on Sept. 23, 2021, and plaintiffs didn't seek a temporary restraining order until January 10, 2022, 108 days later. Before plaintiffs filed their TRO Motion, the California Department of Justice implemented disclosure procedures and disclosed the databases to researchers at two research institutions," the judge wrote. "While plaintiffs contend that AB 173 made a series of amendments to a tangled web of California statutes, and this complexity played a part in the delay, at least one prominent interest group was decrying the bill's effects on September 7, 2021, sixteen days before its enactment."

"Moreover, recipients are barred from public dissemination of personal information, and must submit any research based on the data to the DOJ for prepublication review to ensure that the manuscripts don't contain any information identifying specific individuals. In reaching this determination, the Court relies on counsel's assurance at the hearing that the California DOJ will prevent publication of any manuscript containing such personal biographical information," Burns wrote.

Burns set a March 8 hearing to consider a preliminary injunction.

The case was filed by Michael B. Reynolds, Colin R. Higgins and Cameron J. Schlagel of Snell & Wilmer LLP in Costa Mesa. Reynolds did not respond to calls or emails requesting comment. Schlagel declined to comment. The attorney general's office did not respond to phone and email requests for comment by press time.

The case is Doe et al. v. Bonta et al., 3:22-cv-00010-AJB-DEB, (S.D. Cal., filed Jan. 05, 2022).