California General Ban on Nonresidents’ Getting Concealed Carry Licenses Violates Second Amendment
From today’s Hoffman v. Bonta, decided by Judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo (S.D. Cal.):
The sole issue in this case is whether the Constitution requires California to allow nonresidents to apply for a concealed carry weapons (CCW) license. Plaintiffs, who are not California residents, complain that they are prohibited from carrying a firearm for self-defense when they visit California. For standard two-year licenses, California imposes a residency requirement. An applicant who has his or her principal place of business or employment within the local permitting jurisdiction may receive a 90-day license. Unlike some states, California does not have a reciprocity policy for CCW licenses.
The State argues … that … the Second Amendment does not mandate that a traveler be allowed to use another state’s license to carry in California. In effect, they argue that nonresidents do not qualify as “the people.” The Supreme Court has not interpreted “the people” so narrowly. See Heller (the people “unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset”)….
California [argues that its rule is justified by] historical analogues relating to various “locality-based licensing laws” from the mid-19th century…. The problem for the State is not the licensing laws themselves: Plaintiffs do not seek California’s licensing scheme stricken in its entirety. Instead, the State must provide a historical analogue for licensin
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