U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney, a George W. Bush appointee, granted the temporary restraining order against the controversial measure. He was clear and concise in his ruling upholding both the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent.
“The right to self-defense and to defend one’s family is fundamental and inherent to our very humanity irrespective of any formal codification. For many years, the right to bear arms, and so necessarily the right to self-defense, was relegated to second-class status.”
That travesty, Carney noted, changed when the high court reversed years of anti-Second Amendment activism. Its rulings in District of Columbia v. Heller, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen and other cases swung the pendulum back toward the intent of the Founding Fathers.
Carney added, “Individuals must be able to effectuate their right to self-defense by, if they so choose, responsibly bearing arms.”
The court decision is a major victory for the California Rifle and Pistol Association, which sued to prevent yet another state overreach. It means the law will be blocked from enforcement while the case brought by the gun rights group proceeds through the judicial system.
Organization President Chuck Michel said in a statement that California’s lawmakers utterly rejected the Supreme Court’s mandate in Bruen. He declared that instead of following the law, they “are trying every creative ploy they can imagine to get around it. The Court saw through the State’s gambit.”
Michel observed that if the new law were enforced, legal gun permit holders would be incapable of a simple drive across town without crossing a prohibited area. This would mean breaking the law and subjecting themselves to possible legal penalties.
He added that Carney’s ruling means Californians are now safer and may protect themselves while deterring violent crime.
The judge wrote his belief that the plaintiffs will succeed on merit, meaning that courts will ultimately find the statute unconstitutional and reject it permanently.
But even Heller and Bruen are fair game for some state lawmakers who want self-defense to return to a second-class right. Certain jurisdictions across the nation sprang into action in the aftermath of last year’s Bruen ruling to nullify its clear intention.
These misguided efforts to thwart the Supreme Court resulted in a patchwork quilt of new laws such as California’s. They are designed to reverse the high court decision by making concealed carry and self-defense all but impossible outside the home.
California’s attempt to rewrite the law of the land, SB2, was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Sept. 26. If his intent was not clear enough, he categorized the 6-3 Bruen decision by the high court as “a perversion.”
Newsom is considered by many to be a possible presidential candidate, and he is clearly positioning himself as a gun control zealot ahead of pursuing higher office.
The California statute established sweeping restrictions on where lawful concealed carry permit holders could exercise their rights in the state. Carney declared the action “repugnant to the Second Amendment” and said lawmakers operated in open defiance of the Supreme Court.
Just how sweeping is the new law? It established 26 categories of places in the state where concealed carry is off limits. These include hospitals, public transportation, establishments that sell liquor for consumption on-site, playgrounds, parks, casinos, stadiums, libraries, amusement parks, zoos, places of worship and banks — among others.
In other words, virtually every public property in California would be designated as a “sensitive place” where Second Amendment protections would not apply.
At least for now, that scheme was rejected.
