If there’s one U.S. politician that I’d be happy to never see again, it’s California Governor Gavin Newsom.
When it comes to Newsom, I’m not sure that there is a single issue that he and I agree on, including the amount of hair gel that a man should use (he obviously thinks that they need quite a bit more than I do).
But when it comes to firearms, he and his administration, along with their willing accomplices in the California legislature, take the care for worst gun positions.
Such as a ban on open carry.
Never mind the Second Amendment. Never mind that carrying does not mean threatening or using. Never mind basic rationality and common sense.
Newsom and company banned open carry.
But, thankfully, someone took them to court over it. Matthew Vadum writes,
A divided federal appeals court on Jan. 2 struck down California’s ban on open carry of firearms in most parts of the state, finding that it violates the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled 2–1 in favor of a gun owner, finding that the state prohibition on open carry of guns in counties that have more than 200,000 residents violates the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
About 95 percent of the Golden State’s inhabitants reside in counties of that size.
Now, for those of you wondering what the legal basis of the ruling is, it’s pretty straightforward.
One judge who ruled against the open carry ban cited the Bruen case from the Supreme Court that provided a test based upon historical tradition. That judge said that open carry bans did not fit into “this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulations,” which is true. There hasn’t been any historical tradition of open carry bans in the U.S., so, of course, California’s ban is in violation of Bruen’s ruling.
The other judge that ruled against the state basically said that the state of California made it nearly impossible to get an open carry permit and that there was no record of even one of those permits being issued. In other words, that judge said that the state was violating people’s 2A rights through bureaucracy.
And I have to say that I agree with both justices, and that I think both of them made the right ruling in this case.
Here’s hoping that they keep up the good work.
