9th Circuit Court Rules In Favor Of Gun Rights In California
via Whoopie on May 17th, 2016 in Guns 2 comments
http://blurbrain.com/9th-circuit-court-rules-favor-gun-rights-california/2nd amendment 9mm
Some additional good news on the gun rights front comes to us from an unexpected location this week… California. The Ninth Circuit Court was asked to rule on a “zoning ordinance” in Alameda County which would have placed severe restrictions on the opening of any new gun shop if it was within 500 feet of a wide variety of other types of structures. The wording of the majority opinion drew a line in the sand regarding the sanctity of the Second Amendment:
“The right of law-abiding citizens to keep and to bear arms is not a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees…”
Read more:
Of course that’s true, at least in theory. And yet the fact remains that gun rights are routinely subject to restrictions which reduce them to little more than a privilege, subject to government approval.
What other right requires you to meet certain restrictions and limitations? What other right must you apply for by filling out forms and waiting to be proven innocent by reason of background checks?
And in some states that’s still not enough. You need a license simply to own a gun, yet another to purchase a gun and if it’s a handgun, yet another on top of that. The intention of which is to make it so onerous and burdensome as to dissuade all but the most determined from even trying to exercise their rights.
The right to keep and bear arms has already been infringed in so many ways.
In this case, the anti-gun forces thought they had found an iron clad gimmick. They imposed zoning restrictions so arbitrary that there was literally no place a gun store could legally operate (hit the link to see the wording).
And it’s not just a matter of gun stores. In San Francisco (I believe it was) the city imposed similar restrictions on where a person with a State issued license to carry a concealed weapon could lawfully travel.
If you took a map of the city and drew the mandated boundary around every church, school, bar, hospital, park, day-care center and public building deemed ‘off limits’ you’d find there was only one small strip of space 50 feet wide and 50 yards long where a person could possess a gun and not risk be arrested. And getting to that location would require you to pass through miles of restricted territory.
We’re witnessing an ‘arms race’ (pun unavoidable) in which jurisdictions are desperately trying to preserve their draconian gun restrictions in the face of mounting pressure by courts to overturn them.
Anyone who thought the Supreme Court’s ‘Heller vs DC’ ruling would finally put an end to this crap was kidding themselves. They will not give up so easily.
