Law Banning Carrying of Firearms in Public Hits Another Hard Stop as Court Issues Its Ruling
A new California law that bans guns from being carried in most public places was once again blocked from taking effect Saturday as a court case challenging it continues.
A 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel dissolved a temporary hold on a lower court injunction blocking the law.
The hold was issued by a different 9th Circuit panel and had allowed the law to go into effect Jan. 1.
Saturday’s decision keeps in place a Dec. 20 ruling by U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney blocking the law.
Carney said that it violates the Second Amendment and that gun rights groups would likely prevail in proving it unconstitutional.
The law is known as SB2.
“SB2’s coverage is sweeping, repugnant to the Second Amendment, and openly defiant of the Supreme Court,” Carney wrote, according to Guns.com.
It “turns nearly every public place in California into a ‘sensitive place,’ effectively abolishing the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding and exceptionally qualified citizens to be armed and to defend themselves in public.”
Carney also attacked the law’s effects on law-abiding gun owners.
“Although the government may have some valid safety concerns, legislation regulating [concealed carry] permitholders — the most responsible of law abiding citizens seeking to exercise their Second Amendment rights — seems an odd and misguided place to focus to address those safety concerns,” Carney wrote, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“They have been through a vigorous vetting and training process following their application to carry a concealed handgun,” he wrote.
“The challenged …SB2 provisions unconstitutionally deprive this group of their constitutional right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense.”
The law, signed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, prohibits people from carrying concealed guns in 26 types of places including public parks and playgrounds, churches, banks and zoos.
The ban applies regardless of whether a person has a concealed carry permit.
Under a new California law, state gun owners are barred from carrying firearms into churches, banks, public parks, amusement parks, zoos, museums, and other places the state has deemed “sensitive” — even if they have a concealed carry permit. https://t.co/TYpOUQrJkW
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) January 5, 2024
Newsom has positioned himself as a leader on gun control and says he will keep pushing for stricter regulations.
Following Saturday’s ruling his office issued a statement saying, “this dangerous decision puts the lives of Californians on the line.”
The president of the California Rifle and Pistol Association, which sued to block the law, countered that “the politicians’ ploy to get around the Second Amendment has been stopped for now.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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