Concealed weapons: California looks to restrict how people can carry guns in wake of U.S. Supreme Court ruling

The court’s6-3 ruling June 23found that Americans have a constitutional right, intended by the nation’s founders, to carry guns in public. It struck down a New York law requiring applicants to show a special need for self-protection, and applied equally to similar laws in a half dozen states, including California.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution “is not a second-class right,” declared Justice Clarence Thomas in a ruling that could also be used to challenge California’s ban on semiautomatic rifles that the state defines as assault weapons.

But it did not take state officials by surprise.

“We’ve been preparing for this moment ... for months,” Attorney General Rob Bontasaid at a news conferencehours after the ruling.

A day later, Bonta’s office sent a “legal alert” to all city police departments and county sheriff’s offices in California. It said they could no longer enforce a requirement to show “good cause” to carry a concealed gun in public, a standard that has been used in many urban areas of the state to deny virtually all concealed-carry applicants. But it quoted the ruling’s language that states could still require gun-carriers to be “law-abiding, responsible citizens,” wording that Bonta said would justify review of an applicant’s moral character.

In addition to a person’s criminal record and mental health, Bonta said, a law enforcement office could consider evidence of “trustworthiness, diligence, reliability, respect for the law, integrity, candor ... respect for the rights of others, absence of hatred and racism,” quoting standards now in use by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office. He said an agency could also require a search of “publicly available information, including social media accounts,” for evidence of moral character.

“With gun deaths at an all-time high, ensuring that dangerous individuals are not allowed to carry concealed firearms is more important than ever,” Bonta said.

The guidelines would likely lead to continued rejections of large numbers of concealed-carry applicants. They are also likely to be challenged in court.

“These are very subjective criteria, and I’m confident that they, too, will be declared unconstitutional,” said Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California.

UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh agreed that criteria such as “absence of hatred and racism” would be found to violate freedom of speech.

“The government can’t restrict ordinary citizens’ actions — much less their constitutionally protected actions — based on the viewpoints that they express,” he saidin an online essay.

Meanwhile, state legislators are rewriting California’s gun laws, responding both to the Supreme Court ruling and to the latest wave of mass killings One measure awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature would allow private citizens to sue manufacturers of firearms banned in the state. A newly signed law bans sale or possession of parts used to make untraceable “ghost guns,” which have no serial numbers.

正在起草的措施来对抗拉斯维加斯t month’s ruling is SB918 by Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-La Cañada-Flintridge (Los Angeles County). With the court’s edict that a state can’t require a concealed-carry applicant to show a personal need for self-defense, the bill, sponsored by Bonta, would instead restrict the areas where a gun could be legally carried.

When the court first declared a constitutional right to possess handguns for self-defense in 2008, the author of the ruling, Justice Antonin Scalia, said he did not intend to cast doubt on laws banning guns in “sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.” Thomas reiterated that assurance in last month’s ruling, while cautioning that “the entire island of Manhattan,” despite its dense population, could not be classified as a “sensitive place.”

Portantino, in a memo from his office, said he was amending SB918 after the ruling to define as sensitive places all school and college grounds, courthouses and other government buildings, medical facilities, public transportation, public parks and playgrounds, “any place where alcohol is sold and consumed,” and events requiring public permits, such as demonstrations.

Similar rules are already in effect in states with more permissive gun laws, and “are consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision,” Portantino said. The bill would also increase requirements of gun-safety training for applicants, allow them to carry no more than two concealed weapons at a time, and increase the minimum age for concealed carry from 18 to 21.

If approved by both houses and signed by Newsom, as expected, it would take effect in 2023, unless courts intervene.

“It is such a giant patchwork quilt of areas that do not allow carrying of concealed weapons that a lawful citizen cannot travel from one part of a community to the other without breaking the law,” said Paredes of Gun Owners of California. As for banning concealed carry by 18-year-olds, he said, those youths can now vote and serve in the military, and shouldn’t be treated as “half citizens.”

But attorney Ari Freilich of the San Francisco-based Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence said the legislation would keep guns out of the hands of people with dangerous or violent histories, require additional gun-safety training and increase protection for locations where weapons pose particular dangers.

“SB918 will help protect the public and limit the harm this ruling might otherwise cause,” he said.