California’s gun safety laws are in jeopardy as courts rule against them

California Democrats are used to defending gun control measures against lawsuits from Second Amendment advocates like the California Rifle and Pistol Association.

The state is now facing a lawsuit from the Trump administration targeting a new law restricting sales of Glock semi-automatic handguns.

As of July 1, the state prohibits the sale of Glock pistols and various imitations of other brands that may be converted into fully automatic guns — which are already illegal under state and federal law, with some exceptions — after inserting a converter into the gun.

The U.S. Department of Justice has challenged the law, saying it prohibits the sale of “of America’s most popular handgun” and that it “clearly violates the Second Amendment.” California can enforce its law while the case continues, a judge ruled Thursday.

It’s yet another example of the state scrambling to defend gun control laws passed in the decade since the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting.

Take for example:

• The state is awaiting a decision on another case in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which rejected a 2016 ballot initiative. requiring background checks before purchasing ammunition.
• A new U.S. Supreme Court ruling struck down state laws that bar people from carrying concealed firearms in private places, such as stores, including in California. Writing about majorityJustice Samuel Alito said a similar law in Hawaii “cripples … the right of Americans to bear arms for self-defense as they go about their daily lives.”
• And the high court agreed to hear a case in Illinois that could be overturned California’s assault weapons banwhich restricts the sale of AR-15-style rifles.

State officials are preparing to defend the new gun law, saying it is not an outright ban on Glocks. Rather, they say, it directs gun manufacturers to redesign firearms so they can no longer be easily modified into machine guns.

Gun safety advocates also criticized the lawsuit.

• Adam Skaggsgeneral counsel and vice president at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence: “This law addresses the alarming increase in black market conversion devices and home-made machine guns, such as those used in Sacramento shooting in 2022and aims to keep them off the streets.”

The number of semi-automatic pistols found in crimes that have been modified into machine guns has jumped 784% nationwide between 2019 and 2023according to the federal Department of Justice.

Serious lapses in planning and supervision led to the disastrous management on the California state bar exam last year, according to a state audit released Thursday.

As CalMatters’ Adam Echelman explains, the state bar has moved its February 2025 exam online in an effort to save money. But even before aspiring lawyers took the exam, the state ran into problems: Its first contractor, the testing company Kaplan, didn’t provide enough time or information to properly develop the exam, the audit said. The second contractor, ACS Ventures, used artificial intelligence to compose additional questions, some of which had to be exempted from the final assessment.

During the bar exam itself, test takers reported problems, crashes, delays and a malfunction that allowed them to see other people’s answers, according to a class action lawsuit filed against the proctor, Meazure Learning.

About 36% of the 4,200 people who took the exam passed. But as a means of solving its various problems, the State Bar changed the exam’s scoring system, resulting in a pass rate of about 65%. (By comparison, the February 2026 exam had a 30% pass rate.)

Ultimately, “The State Bar achieved no cost savings in administering the February 2025 bar exam, which cost $5.1 million, not including the costs of pending legal matters,” the state auditor said.

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State public universities will receive more than a billion dollars in new public spending according to the latest state budget, writes Mikhail Zinstein of CalMatters.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest state budget commits more than $500 million in ongoing taxpayer support to the University of California and California State University systems in 2026-27. That increase is due in part to restoring more than $100 million in funding cuts that lawmakers included in last year’s budget.

The money can be used to hire faculty and pay for rising energy, insurance and staff health costs. The budget also fully funds the Cal Grant, which covers tuition at UC and Cal State, even though both systems are raising tuition.

The year before Newsom took office, the two systems each received about $3.7 billion in state support. The latest budget law sends more than $5 billion to each system from the state’s general fund — a 50 percent increase since Newsom became governor.

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