9th Circuit strikes California’s restrictive rule

[Tim Nunan]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volo ... -handguns/

The Ninth Circuit’s decision in Peruta v. San Diego, released minutes ago, affirms the right of law-abiding citizens to carry handguns for lawful protection in public.

California law has a process for applying for a permit to carry a handgun for protection in public, with requirements for safety training, a background check, and so on. These requirements were not challenged. The statute also requires that the applicant have “good cause,” which was interpreted by San Diego County to mean that the applicant is faced with current specific threats. (Not all California counties have this narrow interpretation.) The Ninth Circuit, in a 2-1 opinion written by Judge O’Scannlain, ruled that Peruta was entitled to Summary Judgement, because the “good cause” provision violates the Second Amendment.

The Court ruled that a government may specify what mode of carrying to allow (open or concealed), but a government may not make it impossible for the vast majority of Californians to exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms.

Eugene Volokh may be too modest to say so, but the Court cites him four times, to his articles Implementing the Right to Keep and Bear Arms for Self-Defense: An Analytical Framework and a Research Agenda, 56 UCLA L. Rev. 1443 (2009); and The First and Second Amendments, 109 Colum. L. Rev. Sidebar 97 (2009). I got one cite, for The Second Amendment in the Nineteenth Century, 1998 B.Y.U. L. Rev 1359 (1998). [Other modern scholars cited were Nelson Lund, Stephen Halbrook, Clayton Cramer, Joseph Olson, and Joyce Malcolm, all of whom are familiar to longtime VC readers.]

(more at link)

[Fred762]

Ah soo!! This explains the daggonedest coooold winter we've had..Either he!! hath frozen over, or some PRof CA gun laws have been dissolved!!

[ProguninTN]

We may be getting closer to a date with the SCOTUS. This case is similar to and in conflict with the 3rd Circuit and 4th Circuits. (See Drake v. Filko, and Woollard v. Gallagher.)