Federal judges rule state’s restrictions on guns are ‘reasonable’

A federal appeals court Wednesday upheld California’s 10-day waiting period and background check for existing gun owners and those with concealed-weapons permits, ruling that it did not violate the Second Amendment.

The safety precautions were reasonable, the three-judge panel for the Ninth Circuit United States Court of Appeals said in a statement, reversing a decision by a lower court that had ruled requirements unconstitutional.

“The ten-day wait is a reasonable precaution for the purchase of a second or third weapon, as well as for a first purchase,” the judges wrote in their decision.

In 2014, U.S. District Judge Anthony Ishii of Fresno ruled that the 10-day wait was an unreasonable and unconstitutional restriction unjustified by safety concerns.

The state already requires a waiting period to check of a purchaser’s criminal and mental health records, and a 10-day waiting period for first-time gun buyers. A waiting period for existing gun owners is reasonable, Judge Mary Schroeder said Wednesday.

“An individual who already owns a hunting rifle, for example, may want to purchase a larger capacity weapon that will do more damage when fired into a crowd,” Schroeder said. “A 10-day cooling-off period would serve to discourage such conduct.”

Brandon Combs, executive director of the Calguns Foundation, which is a plaintiff in the case, called the decision “bizarre,” saying that the ruling would not survive “any kind of heightened constitutional scrutiny” by the Supreme Court.

“Today’s opinion is but one of a growing string of wrongly decided Second Amendment cases and serves to underscore that, if the fundamental, individual, Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is to survive as something more than a second-class right, the Supreme Court will need to say so once more,” he said in a statement.

But Schroeder argued that the waiting period had little effect on existing gun owners, noting that before the age of superstores, most people wanting guns had to wait before purchasing one.

Lizzie Johnson is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ljohnson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LizzieJohnsonnn