250.3 - Good News: Court of Appeals says no right to concealed carry

Good News: Court of Appeals says no right to concealed carry

Finally for now, some Good News on an unusual front: guns.

On June 9, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that there is no constitutional right to carry a concealed weapon.

The case, Peruta v. County of San Diego, was about a California law that required people to prove they have "good cause" to carry concealed firearms before they could get a license to do so. San Diego and Yolo counties do not consider "general self-defense" to be "good cause." Put another way, the counties say that "because I wanna" isn't good enough. The plaintiffs challenged those guidelines as, naturally, an affront to their sacred right to pack whatever heat they want however they want wherever they want.

However, the court ruled that "The protection of the Second Amendment - whatever the scope of that protection may be - simply does not extend to the carrying of concealed firearms in public by members of the general public."

The ruling covered a history of laws relating to concealed weapons from England in the 1500s right up to the Heller decision, the 2008 Supreme Court ruling that declared for the first time an individual constitutional right to own guns. Here, the Court of Appeals reminded us that that very same decision, authored by Justice Skeletor, said the right to own a gun is not absolute and cited restrictions on concealed carry as an example of how it isn't.

The ruling was narrow; the Court avoided the question of if the Constitution protects openly carrying a gun in public, saying that was not at issue. But since California also bans the open carry of weapons in public in most circumstances, the gun nuts will likely seek to make that an issue in the future.

Still, a win is a win is a win. And that's Good News.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/9th-circuit-court-appeals-says-no-right-concealed-gun-carry-n589041
https://pacer-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/3/10-56971/009128111226.pdf
http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/09/politics/concealed-carry-second-amendment/
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/12/left-side-of-aisle-87-part-1.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_California#Open_carry