California’s Democratic lawmakers were unchastened by Wednesday’s federal-court ruling putting a hold on their latest gun control laws before they were to take effect Jan. 1.
U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney of the Central District of California, a George W. Bush appointee, issued a preliminary injunction against the law, calling the measure “sweeping, repugnant to the Second Amendment, and openly defiant of the Supreme Court.”
The law bans people from carrying concealed firearms in 26 categories of “sensitive places” including churches, hospitals, public parks and zoos and even a “privately owned commercial establishment” unless the proprietor explicitly tells the public they allow on-property carry.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state would appeal the injunction and California Gov. Gavin Newsom blasted the decision as “defying common sense.”
“This ruling outrageously calls California’s data-backed gun safety efforts ‘repugnant.’ What is repugnant is this ruling, which greenlights the proliferation of guns in our hospitals, libraries, and children’s playgrounds — spaces, which should be safe for all,” he said.
The law was signed by Mr. Newsom in September in response to the landmark Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which struck down a New York law that prohibited carrying firearms outside the home.
Just days after Mr. Newsom signed the bill, a lawsuit was filed by California firearm owners, Orange County Gun Owners PAC, the California Gun Rights Foundation and the Firearms Policy Coalition saying the law violated Bruen on multiple grounds.
Gun rights activists praised the Wednesday ruling as denying those with legal firearms a way to defend themselves and their loved ones.
“California progressive politicians refuse to accept the Supreme Court’s mandate from the Bruen case and are trying every creative ploy they can imagine to get around it,” said California Rifle and Pistol Association President Chuck Michel in a statement. “The court saw through the state’s gambit.”
Mr. Michel said that the prohibited spaces were so many that a permit holder “wouldn’t be able to drive across town without passing through a prohibited area and breaking the law.”
The law banned guns from those spaces, based on the presence of families and children, even if the person had a concealed-carry license.
Second Amendment Foundation founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb called the California law an affront “to the right to keep and bear arms.”
“It’s an insult to the intelligence of every honest citizen in the Golden State,” he said. “It amounts to a massive prohibition on legal carry throughout the state, which runs counter to what the U.S. Supreme Court said in its Bruen ruling last year.”
Another federal court ruled differently earlier this month on this issue.
A federal appeals court in New York ruled that the state’s “sensitive locations” restrictions in its gun control laws can continue to be enforced and the state also can require that handgun owners be of “good moral character.”
