California ban on open carry of firearms ruled unconstitutional by appeals court

"California's ban on the open carry of firearms in most parts of the state is unconstitutional, a San Francisco-based federal appeals court ruled Friday. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the ban, which applied to counties with populations greater than 200,000, violates residents' 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Under those regulations, 95% of the state's population was subject to the ban."

"VanDyke, writing for the majority, stated that California's urban ban on open-carry permits does not stand under the Supreme Court's landmark gun rights ruling New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn. vs. Bruen. That 2022 decision made it much easier to carry a gun in public by striking down laws that required people to show a special need for self-defense. It also established a test for determining whether a state's gun regulations violate the Constitution by requiring that restrictions are consistent with "the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms." VanDyke wrote in his opinion that California's open-carry ban fails this test."

""The historical record makes unmistakably plain that open carry is part of this Nation's history and tradition," he wrote. "It was clearly protected at the time of the Founding and at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment.""

A federal appeals court invalidated California's ban on open carry in counties with populations over 200,000, affecting roughly 95% of the state's residents. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a 2–1 decision, with two Trump appointees in the majority and a Bush appointee dissenting. The majority applied the Supreme Court's 2022 Bruen framework, which requires firearm restrictions to align with the nation's historical tradition. The opinion concluded that open carry was historically protected at the Founding and the Fourteenth Amendment era, and that California's urban ban fails the Bruen test and infringes the Second Amendment.

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