PHOENIX (AP) – A federal appeals court ruling Thursday that said people don’t have a Second Amendment right to carry a concealed weapon applies to Arizona but will have no effect in the state because its laws grant a broad right to carry guns. Second Amendment proponents have made their thoughts known and will continue to do so, but for now, their cause has reached a roadblock. As a result, banning concealed carry hardly stopped a person from carrying a gun. “So they challenged this interpretation of the ‘good cause” law in court, insisting that it violated their right to bear arms under the Second and Fourteenth amendments of the United States Constitution”.
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In his finding that such regulations are constitutional, Fletcher cited the Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller decision, which affirmed the right to keep guns for self-defense, but found that “the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited”.
The case was brought over a San Diego sheriff who only granted concealed carry permits to people who could demonstrate they had reason to fear an attack, i.e. someone who could show they had been granted a restraining order against an individual.
Today, California, Hawaii, and some Northeastern states retain the right to decide who gets to carry concealed weapons in public. “To confine the right to be armed to the home is to divorce the Second Amendment from the right of self-defense” recognized by the Supreme Court, that court concluded.
Last week brought a surprising court ruling on guns that must have elicited fairly predictable reactions – delight, or dismay – from those on either side of the firearms debate.
Three other appellate circuits – none with jurisdiction over Florida – have upheld “good cause” laws. He held that the state’s ban on openly carrying guns, coupled with strictly limiting the permits for concealed weapons, threatened the rights of Americans to keep and bear arms.
This morning, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a long-awaited opinion in a case challenging how concealed-weapon permits are issued in California. Under state law, applicants have to show good moral character, have a good cause and take a training course.
“I don’t think anyone should be restricted”, he said.
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In California, the ruling allows sheriffs in rural counties to make more accommodations for those who want to shoulder a rifle in the high mountain country versus urban law enforcement agencies, who maintain that more guns on city streets make those streets more risky. From the Supreme Court’s current term, abortion, the death penalty, the Affordable Care Act and affirmative action are just some topics that fall into this category. It also will likely be appealed to the Supreme Court and be decided after a new justice is named to succeed the late Antonin Scalia.
