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Peruta v. San Diego County

Peruta v. San Diego
Seal of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.svg
Court United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Full case name Edward Peruta et al v. County of San Diego et al.
Argued June 16, 2015 (2015-06-16)
Court membership
Judges sitting Sidney Runyan Thomas, Harry Pregerson, Barry G. Silverman, Susan P. Graber, M. Margaret McKeown, William A. Fletcher, Richard Paez. Consuelo Maria Callahan, Carlos T. Bea, Norman Randy Smith, and John B. Owens
Keywords

Peruta v. San Diego was a 2016 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit pertaining to the legality of San Diego County's restrictive policy regarding requiring documentation of "good cause" that "distinguish[es] the applicant from the mainstream and places the applicant in harm's way" (Cal. Pen. Code §§ 26150, 26155) before issuing a concealed carry permit.

After an initial ruling in 2014 that held that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protected the right to carry a concealed weapon, the court reheard the case en banc, ultimately upholding the lower court ruling, saying that "there is no Second Amendment right for members of the general public to carry concealed firearms in public." While the ruling technically applied to all states and territories under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit, it only applied to California and Hawaii in practice because the remaining states in the Ninth Circuit's area of responsibility have either Shall-Issue licensing policies or allow concealed carry without a permit.

The case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which in June 2017 denied the writ of certiorari, leaving the Ninth Circuit's en banc opinion in place.

The court reviewed the history of gun control cases in which laws forbidding the concealed carry of weapons were involved. They covered a time period from 1299 (in England) to the late 1800s US Supreme Court. The majority opinion was that there was an "overwhelming consensus" of historical case decisions establishing that there was never a time in history when courts believed that states could not prohibit concealed carry. Consequently, they concluded it could not be a violation of the long-standing interpretation of the Second Amendment.

The minority argued that a prohibition on concealed carry for the general public, accompanied by a similar prohibition on open carry, was a de facto gun ban, and therefore is unconstitutional under District of Columbia v. Heller.

Under San Diego's policy, a "'typical' citizen in San Diego County cannot bear arms in public for self-defense" because by San Diego's definition, typical citizens cannot '"distinguish [themselves] from the mainstream'" and receive concealed carry permits. (Peruta v. San Diego (9th Cir, 02-13-14) p. 54.) Although prior to January 1, 2012, it was legal to openly carry an unloaded handgun in public, in October 2011 Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that modifies the law on openly carrying an unloaded firearm to match the restrictions for openly carrying a loaded weapon, effectively prohibiting (in all but limited circumstances) the open carry of firearms whether loaded or unloaded. (Cal. Pen. Code §§ 25850, 26155.) Thus, the court found San Diego County's restrictive policy in combination with California's denial of open carry ultimately resulted in the destruction of the typical law-abiding, responsible citizen's right to bear arms in any manner in public, thereby violating the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.


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