A California gun shop in the Bay Area is facing a lawsuit over the sale of a shotgun to an 18-year-old who later used the firearm to take his own life, and the parents who initiated the civil suit are getting an assist from the legal wing of the gun control group Giffords.
The lawsuit, filed on Monday in Contra Costa County Superior Court, alleges that the store was negligent for not assessing the young man’s motivation for purchasing the shotgun, as well as for selling him a gun that is not legal for hunting in California.
State law forbids the purchase of any firearm for adults under the age of 21, with an exception for those who possess a valid hunting license, who are allowed to purchase non-semi-automatic long guns. According to the complaint, “Any reasonable person would understand this exception to mean that a gun should not be sold to a young person who plainly is not going to be using it to hunt.”
The problem with that theory, though, is that even California’s Department of Justice has argued that the exception allows adults under the age of 21 to purchase firearms for self-defense (though not the firearms that are most commonly used for that purpose).
An especially strange argument because California literally just told the Ninth Circuit that there’s nothing wrong with making people who don’t want to hunt get a hunting license before buying a gun for self-defense
— Rob Romano (@2Aupdates) July 14, 2026
The lawsuit contends that the teen originally wanted to purchase a Mossberg Maverick 88-Slug, but the gun shop didn’t have any in stock. Instead, according to the complaint, an employee of the store asked if he wanted to buy a Mossberg Maverick 88-Security instead. The Security model features an 18.5″ barrel compared to the 24″ barrel on the Slug model, and the complaint notes that the Security model is “illegal” to hunt with in California as sold, though it can easily become California-compliant by using a plug to reduce the capacity to three rounds.
The sale of the shotgun wasn’t illegal, and the 19-year-old passed a background check and waited the 10 days required under California law before picking up the firearm. The lawsuit alleges, though, that under California’s Firearm Industry Responsibility Act, the gun store had a duty to “establish, implement, and enforce reasonable controls”—defined as “reasonable procedures, acts, or practices that are designed, implemented, and enforced to” (i) “[p]revent the sale or distribution of a firearm-related product to … a person prohibited from possessing a firearm under state or federal law, or a person who the firearm industry member has reasonable cause to believe is at substantial risk of using a firearm-related product to harm themselves or another or of possessing or using a firearm-related product unlawfully” and (ii) “[e]nsure that the firearm industry member complies with all provisions of California and federal law and does not otherwise promote the unlawful manufacture, sale, possession, marketing, or use of a firearm-related product.”
In steering Jeffrey Lucas Gurmendi Marshall—who was under the age of 21 and only permitted to purchase a firearm under the Hunting License Exemption—to purchase a tactical firearm both unsuitable and illegal for hunting, City Arms failed to act reasonably.
Again, the state of California not only allows these sales to adults under the age of 21, but has argued that young adults are still able to purchase firearms for self-defense so long as they’ve obtained a hunting license beforehand.
In failing to verbally ask Jeffrey—who was under the age of 21 and only permitted to purchase a firearm under the Hunting License Exemption—why he was purchasing a non-hunting shotgun and ammunition illegal for hunting use in California, and in selling him these products, City Arms created a reasonably foreseeable risk that Jeffrey would use the firearm for an unlawful purpose: either hunting with lead ammunition or using the firearm for a purpose other than hunting.
Was there really a “reasonable foreseeable risk” that the young man would use the firearm for an unlawful purpose given that there are still lawful activities that a 19-year-old can engage in with a pump action shotgun and slug ammunition?
The suit alleges several other failures on the part of the gun shop, all of which are predicated on the false premise that adults under the age of 21 can only purchase firearms if they’re going to hunt with them. But in PWGG v. Bonta, the California AG made it clear that “the hunting license exemption does not categorically prohibit any conduct; it requires only that 18-to-20-year-olds obtain a license to ensure that they receive additional firearms safety training.” Another portion of the AG’s brief filed in the Ninth Circuit last October is also relevant to the civil suit filed on Monday.
Plaintiffs’ true argument is that the hunting license is “irrelevant” or a “pointless endeavor for someone with no interest in hunting.” But their disagreement with the California legislature’s judgment that 18-to-20-year-olds would benefit from additional safety instruction is not a basis for relief under the Second Amendment. The relevant question is whether the licensing regime is “put toward abusive ends.”
According to Attorney General Rob Bonta, the purpose of the law in question is not to prevent adults under the age of 21 from purchasing firearms for the purposes of self-defense, but to mandate that they receive training before purchasing a firearm. I don’t think that fully explains why California prohibits adults under 21 from purchasing semi-automatic firearms, but based on Bonta’s own argument the gun shop had no reason to deny the gun sale or even question why the firearm was being purchased.
California law also allows for FFLs to accept an order and take payment over the phone, so long as things like filling out the Form 4473, Dealer Record of Sale, Firearm Safety Certificate, and doing a safe handling demonstration are conducted in person. The lawsuit doesn’t claim that the gun shop skipped any of those steps, but still alleges that in “failing to mandate that all firearm purchase transactions be completed in person, and by completing the sale of the firearm to Jeffrey entirely over the phone, City Arms missed a key opportunity to assess Jeffrey’s demeanor and behavior and thus failed to establish, implement, and enforce reasonable controls to prevent the sale of a firearm to a person at substantial risk of using a firearm-related product to harm himself or others.”
Now, it’s entirely possible that this lawsuit will be unsuccessful, but there’s no real rationale for filing it in the first place other than California’s Firearm Industry Responsibility Act encourages these types of claims. Even if a gun shop abides by every one of the gun control laws that lawmakers have put in place, they can still be sued over a lawful sale if the buyer misuses that firearm in any way.
I feel for the parents of this young man. I know the pain of losing a son in an untimely and unnatural way. On some level, I can even understand the desire to see some entity held responsible for their death. But it wasn’t the liquor store who killed my son, and it wasn’t the gun store that took their son’s life. Jeffrey Lucas Gurmendi Marshall’s death is a tragedy, but holding the gun store that sold him a shotgun financially responsible for his death would be an injustice.
The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was supposed to prevent suits like this from going forward, but states like California, New York, and my home state of Virginia have put laws in place that are designed to do an end run around PLCAA’s protections. The Supreme Court denied cert in a case challenging New York’s law last term, but I hope that in the near future the justices will put a halt to lawsuits like this one.
Read the full article here
