California will require background checks on ammo starting July 1

“It is rather curious why we advocate background checks on guns, but then we limit any consideration, at least nationally, to that dangerous component, ammunition,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a Tuesday press conference.

Ammunition buyers will have their identification run through two databases, the second of which will check to ensure the buyer hasn’t lost eligibility to own a gun because of criminal convictions or mental health commitments. Those who pass can take home their ammo on the spot.

The second check through California’s Armed and Prohibited Persons System is proving problematic. Residents who bought a handgun before 1996 and a rifle or shotgun before 2014 are likely not in the database.

Gun owners not in the system will have to pay a $19 fee for a background check that could take days. Once the buyer passes, they can complete one ammunition purchase within 30 days.

Those already registered in California’s gun owner’s database will have to pay a $1 processing fee every time they buy ammunition.

Gun owners across the state are stocking up on ammunition before the law goes into effect Monday.

“In the last two weeks I’ve been up about 300%” with people “bulking up because of these stupid new laws,” Chris Puehse, owner of Foothill Ammo in Sacramento said.

Opponents, including the National Rifle Association, are worried about the “practical and financial problems” and “friction” the new law creates when customers are “trying to make a simple ammunition purchase.”

The new law “will do nothing to stop access by criminals who have so many other ways to get ammunition,” Chuck Michael, an attorney for the National Rifle Association said.

The new regulation makes California the first state in the country to require point-of-sale background checks on all ammunition purchases.