Byrna Files Lawsuit Against CA for Blocking Ammunition Sales of Less-Lethal Weapons

Bryan Ganz is the founder of Byrna, the less-lethal self-defense weapons, which looks like handguns but shoot powerful chemical irritants rather than lethal bullets, designed to immobilize an attacker air intruder. The weapons are legal in all 50 states. But, in California, Ganz told the Globe that the state blocked sales of Byrna’s ammunition and launchers.

Why? We thought a less-lethal weapon (some say it’s non-lethal) would be a wildly popular option, and hailed by California’s Attorney General and law enforcement. The Byrna uses a pepper-gel projectile, like a pepper spray, rather than bullets.

But it’s complicated, the Gun Zone explains, thanks to California’s highly regulated gun control laws. “Because it doesn’t discharge a projectile ‘by means of an explosive,’ as defined by California Penal Code section 16520, it technically falls outside the strict definition of a firearm. However, this doesn’t automatically grant free rein. California law, particularly when dealing with weapons designed for defense, is highly regulated.”

And it’s further complicated by brazen gun control and anti-police politics.

In 2021, California passed Assembly Bill 48 by then-Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, which outlawed “the use of kinetic energy projectiles or chemical agents by any law enforcement agency to disperse any assembly, protest, or demonstration, except in compliance with specified standards set by the bill, and would prohibit their use solely due to a violation of an imposed curfew, verbal threat, or noncompliance with a law enforcement directive.”

In 2021, with the well-funded George Floyd protests across the country, police  were confronted with violent riots and protesters, and forced to use crowd control measures. Assemblywoman Gonzalez claimed that her bill was in response to the unwarranted force used by law enforcement against protestors, journalists and others in the George Floyd protests. She objected to the injuries caused by rubber bullets, beanbag rounds, foam rounds, and other projectiles, the Globe reported in 2021.

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