SECOND AMENDMENT WINS: Appeals Court Shoots Down ‘Unconstitutional’ California Open-Carry Ban
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that a California ban on openly carrying firearms violates the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, giving gun owners a major win in the deep blue state.
In a 2-1 ruling, the appeals court partially sided with a California gun owner Mark Baird, who sued over California’s ban on openly carrying a firearm in counties with more than 200,000 residents. The law, which went into effect as an “urban open-carry ban,” effectively prohibited around 95% of California’s population from carrying a gun in public.
U.S. Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, said in the ruling that “historical record makes unmistakably plain that open carry is part of this Nation’s history and tradition.”
“It was clearly protected at the time of the Founding and at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. There is no record of any law restricting open carry at the Founding, let alone a distinctly similar historical regulation,” the judge stated. “California’s failure to satisfy its burden to present evidence of a relevant historical tradition of firearm regulation is dispositive with respect to California’s urban open-carry ban.”
The open-carry ban was defended by California Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta, who has pushed for gun control at the state and federal levels.
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In the ruling, VanDyke also said that California’s open-carry ban could not stand under the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in 2022 in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen, which found that Americans have the right to carry firearms in public. The judge also noted how most U.S. states generally allow for open carry, a list that included California until the state enacted its urban open carry ban in 2012.
“In doing so, California joined a tiny minority of states to have adopted such severe restrictions on open carry. In fact, California is the only state in the Ninth Circuit that has entirely banned open carry for the overwhelming majority of its citizens,” VanDyke wrote.
VanDyke was joined by Kenneth Lee, another Trump-appointed judge, in ruling against the California law. The three-judge panel ruled against Baird’s challenge of licensing requirements in counties with fewer than 200,000 residents.
Friday’s ruling comes after a 2023 decision from a district court judge who rejected a legal challenge to California’s open carry ban. Senior U.S. Circuit Judge N. Randy Smith, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, dissented in part, arguing that the appeals court “should have affirmed the district court.”
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