An appeals court has ruled that California’s restrictive law banning open carry in nearly all of the state is unconstitutional.
On January 2, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court in the case Baird v. Bonta held that the Golden State’s ban on open carry in counties with a population of more than 200,000 people violated the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.
The 9th Circuit decision stemmed from a civil rights lawsuit filed by Mark Baird of Siskiyou County. Baird argued in Sacramento federal court that he wished to openly carry a firearm for self-defense throughout California, but the state’s ban made it illegal in counties with populations exceeding 200,000 residents.
its 200,000 population threshold, the law actually prohibits open carry in areas of the state where 95% of Californians live and work. Only about 2 million people, about 5% of the population, live in the counties with less than 200,000 population, which are not covered by the law.
Writing for the majority, Judge Lawrence VanDyke noted: “California’s legal regime is a complete ban on open carry in urban areas — the areas of the state where 95% of the people live.”
“For most of American history, open carry has been the default manner of lawful carry for firearms,” the ruling explained. “It remains the norm across the country—more than 30 states generally allow open carry to this day, including states with significant urban populations. Indeed, several of our Nation’s largest cities and states recently returned to unlicensed open carry by explicitly authorizing it. Similarly, for the first 162 years of its history open carry was a largely unremarkable part of daily life in California.”
Because of the long history of open carry, the court said the ruling fails to meet the second standard of the U.S. Supreme Courts’ Bruen ruling, which requires the government to prove a historic precedent exists for the law.
“Although this court has recently confronted a panoply of Second Amendment cases, this case stands out in that it unquestionably involves a historical practice—open carry—that predates ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791,” VanDyke stated. “The historical record makes unmistakably plain that open carry is part of this Nation’s history and tradition. It was clearly protected at the time of the Founding and at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
Of course, California’s anti-gun leaders, including Attorney General Rob Bonta, were displeased with the decision.
“We are committed to defending California’s commonsense gun laws,” AG Bonta said in a written response to the ruling. “We are reviewing the opinion and considering all options.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is eyeing a run for president in 2028, also expressed disdain for the panel’s decision.
“California just got military troops with weapons of war off of the streets of our cities, but now Republican activists on the Ninth Circuit want to replace them with gunslingers and return to the days of the Wild West,” Newsom wrote in a Facebook post. “California’s law was carefully crafted to comply with the Second Amendment and we’re confident this decision will not stand.”
California is expected to request that the full 9th Circuit Court hear the case in the near future.
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