In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen that New York’s statutory limits on public carry licenses were unconstitutional inasmuch as an applicant was required to show a “special need” for such a license. It also spoke to the right to carry in public and, although it didn’t innumerate what areas were allowed, Bruen illustrated that “sensitive” areas were locations where a state could prohibit public carry and concealed carry.
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Before Bruen, New York considered Manhattan as “sensitive” simply because it is densely populated.
Justice Thomas, writing for the majority, said places like courtrooms and legislative chambers can be deemed “sensitive” and a state could ban public carry in those locations. Bruen was hailed as a watershed moment for the Second Amendment. The left saw it differently.
Many states, including California and Hawaii, moved quickly to shoehorn Bruen into oblivion. Hawaii’s Supreme Court strikingly found that Bruen was “bad law” and reversed a lower court finding that carrying a weapon is allowed pursuant to Federal law but was not allowed pursuant to Hawaii’s Constitution. The state’s Supreme Court threw a middle finger at the U.S. Supreme Court and the United States Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. Like petulant children, Hawaii’s Supreme Court took 50 pages to say, in essence, “we don’t like what SCOTUS ruled, so we are going to ignore it.”
In California, Governor Gavin Newsom made it his mission to limit gun rights. California passed new legislation that made it almost impossible to carry a weapon in any public setting. California designated almost all public places “sensitive” areas in which a citizen is barred from carrying a gun. In two California cases, later consolidated with the lead case out of Hawaii, the court of appeals found Hawaii and California’s bans to be too restrictive.
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Reason reported the 9th Circuit ruling as such:
Last Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which is not known for its friendliness to Second Amendment rights, dealt a blow to that end run by partly upholding two preliminary injunctions against location-specific gun bans in California and Hawaii, including prohibitions on guns in places of worship, banks, public transit, medical facilities, and certain parking lots. At the same time, the appeals court upheld several broad provisions that make it a crime to carry guns in parks, playgrounds, “places of amusement,” and bars or restaurants that serve alcohol, along with Hawaii’s default rule against guns in businesses open to the public.
In Wolford v Lopez (Hawaii) and consolidated cases from California, the three-judge panel found the following:
“…affirmed the district court’s preliminary injunction to the extent that it enjoins restrictions on firearms at hospitals and similar medical facilities, public transit, gatherings that require a permit, places of worship, financial institutions, parking areas and similar areas connected to those places. The panel also affirmed the district court’s preliminary injunction with respect to the new default rule as to private property. The panel reversed the preliminary injunction to the extent it enjoins restrictions prohibiting firearms at bars and restaurants that serve alcohol, playgrounds, youth centers, parks, athletic areas, athletic facilities, most real property under the control of the Department of Parks and Recreation or the Department of Fish and Wildlife, casinos and similar gambling establishments, stadiums, arenas, public libraries, amusement parks, zoos, and museums; parking areas and similar areas connected to those places; and all parking areas connected to other sensitive places listed in the statute.”
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Although it seems to be a “win” for gun rights – a large swath of public areas are, and still remain “sensitive” and thus states can bar citizens for carrying a concealed gun in those areas. In theory, a citizen can stop a mass shooting at a playground, but if that citizen isn’t an off duty peace officer and does so while carrying a gun, that theoretical hero will be arrested for carrying a gun in a “sensitive” area.
If appealed, I think it is likely that the SCOTUS will deny certiorari. California and Hawaii will continue to restrict citizens from carrying in public and it seems likely that state legislatures, hostile to the 2nd Amendment will deem more areas “sensitive” making concealed carry permits almost useless in some states.
What has been constantly and conveniently ignored by state legislators and courts in California and Hawaii is that citizens who take the time and effort to get a concealed carry permit aren’t abusing it – or shooting people in public without good cause.
And criminals don’t apply for concealed carry permits because – they are criminals.