Federal judge rules against Calif. gun advocates (no Constitutional right to conceal carry)

[villager]

Source: AP

Federal judge rules against Calif. gun advocates

A federal judge has ruled against gun-rights advocates who had challenged how much discretion California law enforcement officials have in issuing concealed weapons permits.

U.S. District Court Judge Morrison England Jr. in Sacramento supported a policy by Yolo County Sheriff Ed Prieto, who says applicants must have a reason, such as a safety threat, to legally carry a hidden gun.

<snip>

In his ruling Monday, England said the Second Amendment "does not create a fundamental right to carry a concealed weapon in public."



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/05/16/state/n164022D64.DTL

[sharesunited]

1. Sanity survives one day at a time.

[DavidDvorkin]

2. Unfortunately, the insane faction is a majority on the Supreme Court.

[defendandprotect]

31. +1

[No Elephants]

47. Don't DU rules require that the first post on every gun thread be a popcorn-eating image (and

nothing more)?

[Deep13]

3. Not surprised. nt

[RC]

4. Good call.

A sane Federal Judge.

[RSillsbee]

5. Let me just remind you

Heller V. DC

McDonald V. Chicago

Coming soon to a SCOTUS near you

Gun Owner X V. State of California


TYPO

[damntexdem]

10. The judge ruled "no right to concealed carry."

Not about gun ownership.

[villager]

11. Yes, you've once again reminded us of the rightwing kooks who hold a majority...

...one our Supreme "Court"

[jpak]

17. Let me just remind you that the court ruled that the Second Amendment was NOT absolute

in that case

yup

[jpak]

18. Oh yeah - just how many RW SCOTUS justices will allow "law abiders" to carry guns into their court?

zero

The Holy 2A is not absolute

yup

[safeinOhio]

24. McDonald Court held that

http://www.cga.ct.gov/2010/rpt/2010-R-0314.htm

the Court reiterated in McDonald that the 2nd Amendment only protects a right to possess a firearm in the home for lawful uses such as self-defense. It stressed that some firearm regulation is constitutionally permissible and the 2nd Amendment right to possess firearms is not unlimited. It does not guarantee a right to possess any firearm, anywhere, and for any purpose.


Go ahead NRA and push conceal carry all the way to the SC. and then be careful what you wish for.

[friendly_iconoclast]

32. I notice you are contradicting your fellow gun control advocates.

Not that there's anything wrong with that....

[No Elephants]

46. Your point?

Heller V. D.C. = Second Amendment creates an individual right and therefore a total ban on guns in D.C. enacted by Congress violates the Second Amendment.

McDonald V. Chicago = What we said in Heller v. D.C. about Congress applies to the States (aka the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Second Amendment applicable to the states.

So, what's your point?

[Arctic Dave]

6. OBAMA IS TAKIN OUR GUNZZZZZZ11!!!11

HAIR ON FIRE1!1!1

[SoapBox]

7. Oh ya...The Five Activist Judges on the Supreme Court will rule over this...

Yup! They are all in favor of people (kids!) getting killed with guns!

...a lovely bunch of coconuts they are.

[RSillsbee]

14. Straw man

Yup! They are all in favor of people (kids!) getting killed with guns!

Please cite a decision or even a dissent stating this.

[safeinOhio]

25. The opposite is true if

you read what Scalia wrote in Chicago V.......

Good luck with SC on CCW. Bring it to court an open the door to new restrictions on my right to carry. Get greedy and screw it all up. Just like the radical republicans on Medicare and Social Security.

[No Elephants]

50. LOL! (And people say I'm too literal.)

[Hoyt]

8. Good news.

[Somawas]

9. Kind of hard to stretch "keep and bear arms" to

"carry arms concealed." IMNSHO

[Kolesar]

12. This is when the frenzied gun activists change the subject to "no one got hurt"

"you came out all right, didn't you"

[primavera]

30. No problem for this Supreme Court

Hell, they managed to completely blow off that entire clause of the Second Amendment about how the right to bear arms depends upon the need the maintain a well regulated militia. If they can erase essential clauses from the Constitution when it doesn't serve their right-wing ideology, do you seriously imagine they'll have any difficulty inserting an extra word or two?

[Somawas]

34. Yes, I do.

The Constitution's language does not say that the right to keep and bear arms "depends" on the need for a well regulated militia.

[primavera]

35. Right

The well-regulated militia bit was just one of those wacky things the forefathers used to say when they'd get stoned and has no bearing on anything. At least, that's certainly what the five wackos on the Court would have us believe.

[Somawas]

39. Read the actual text.

Not your interpretation; not the voices in your head. It does not say that the rtkba "depends" on the need for a well regulated militia. It calls the rtkba a right "of tghe people." This was not something five guys made up.

[No Elephants]

45. It says that a well -regulated militia is the reason for the right.

[slackmaster]

56. It says the importance of a well-regulated militia is the reason the right shall not be infringed

Not quite the same thing.

[slackmaster]

36. You have it exactly backwards, perverted to perfection

The ability of the states to maintain well-regulated militias depends on the right of people to keep and bear arms, not the other way around.

If you don't have a pool of people in the general population who own and are proficient in the use of arms, it's hard to form a militia when you need one. At least that was the situation in the 18th century, and the law is the law until it's repealed.

[primavera]

38. A well regulated militia being necessary...

In other words, the whole purpose of the second amendment is to serve the legitimate policy goal of "the security of a free state." Please note, the Second Amendment does NOT read "In order that any trigger-happy idiot can get their jollies blowing shit up." If the right exists to serve a policy goal, i.e., maintaining the security of the state, it is not an absolute that exists independently of that legitimate policy goal. If it was intended to be an absolute right to any unregulated, untrained, unsupervised Tom, Dick, and Harry to enjoy for any purpose under the sun, the founders would have said "Everyone gets to have guns, period." That is not what they said.

[slackmaster]

40. The Constitution is silent on people deriving pleasure from blowing shit up, but that is off topic

If the right exists to serve a policy goal, i.e., maintaining the security of the state, it is not an absolute that exists independently of that legitimate policy goal.

I haven't seen anyone on this forum claiming otherwise. However, I will say that unless someone is doing something harmful there is no compelling interest for the state to restrict their choices. Objective systems for issuing permits to carry concealed weapons have been implemented in nearly every US state with great success, i.e. no harm to public safety. In the absence of harm, more choice is fundamentally a good thing.

If it was intended to be an absolute right to any unregulated, untrained, unsupervised Tom, Dick, and Harry to enjoy for any purpose under the sun, the founders would have said "Everyone gets to have guns, period." That is not what they said.

You are correct that the founders never said that, but neither has anyone else (at least on this forum.) It's also off topic for this thread.

We all recognize that no right is absolute and that all rights are subject to restriction through due process of law. California's antiquated system of allowing Sheriffs and chiefs of police to decide who gets a permit and who doesn't creates obvious potential for graft and conflict of interest. It should be eliminated and replaced with a strict but purely objective system.

[primavera]

42. It all depends upon where you lay the emphasis

My point of view is that the right to keep and bear arms exists within the specific context of the stated policy goal, and not as an absolute, independent, universal right. From that take on the Second Amendment, it follows that the right can be curtailed to the extent that it does not further that stated policy goal. Despite your assurances to the contrary, few denizens of the gungeon would agree with that interpretation; virtually all perceive the Second Amendment as guaranteeing them a right to keep and bear arms, whether it serves national security or not. If one reads the well-regulated militia clause of the Second Amendment as being merely an explanatory introduction as opposed to a conditional context, one will find in it an unconditional right. Which reading is correct? I'm not sure I know or even really care. I do know that the majority of legal scholarship has favored the former interpretation over the latter, and it has only been recently that the Court has acquired enough right-wingers to overrule that prevailing interpretation.

Honestly, the whole question of what the framers may or may not have intended strikes me as a fairly pointless debate. Unlike the originalists like Mad Dog Scalia, I look on the Constitution as a thing that needs to be living and evolving, not some sacred granite tablet handed down from the mountain by holy forefathers, whose every word reflects the zenith of goodness and reason for all eternity. The founders were not gods, they were just ordinary schmoes, a little brighter than most, but they had no supernatural ability to see centuries into the future and anticipate every possible contingency that the Constitution might need to address. I truly believe that the founders themselves would be mortified to learn that the words that they wrote were being literally adhered to as a bible over two centuries later. The vast majority of the world's nations periodically modernize their constitutions for precisely that reason. So whether or not it was the intention of the founders that every Tom, Dick, and Harry should have unfettered access to guns as gun right proponents believe already seems like kind of a silly question: even if that was their intention, they could no more foresee the future proliferation of gun violence than any other mere mortal could have. And if they did foresee it and still thought unrestricted universal access to guns was a cool thing, well, then they were wrong, like so many other mere mortals have been throughout the ages.

I do find it a little disingenuous that gun-toting Dems who, until recently, thought just as poorly as the rest of us did of the Court's conservative majority, are now hailing those very same wackos who gave us Bush v. Gore as being paragons of legal wisdom and stridently proclaiming the integrity and inviolability of "the law of the land." Please. These are the same barking mad, foaming at the mouth assholes who gave us Citizens United, who only attained the bench through the patronage of other barking mad, foaming at the mouth assholes. I'm happy for you that they produced a ruling you like, but let's not pretend that makes them any less fallible, or our "law of the land" any less corrupted, than they were before Heller.

[slackmaster]

43. My point is that unless the state has a compelling interest in restricting a choice, there is no...

...rational basis for the restriction. A restriction made without justification, or with a false justification not supported by facts, needlessly curtails liberty and is therefore inherently wrong. That's what the term infringement refers to, arbitrary or capricious encroachment of rights that does harm and is not offset by some kind of benefit. California's law on concealed weapon permits allows a right to be denied without defensible justification, by someone who doesn't know you personally and will probably never meet you. It's an obsolete relic from a time when there were no statewide records of criminal convictions, mental incompetence adjudications, etc. and the local police were likely to really know the good guys from the bad guys.

The law creates a situation in which the degree of protection a person gets depends on where he or she lives with respect to arbitrary jurisdiction boundaries. Person A might happen to live in a place where a chief law enforcement officer grants permits to anyone who is over 21, has a clean background and can pass a standard examination (objective), while Person B who lives very near Person A can't get a permit because the chief LEO only allows his political supporters to have permits (which has happened and is still happening now).

People have a fundamental right to own, say, or do anything that has not been restricted through due process of law. Your use of words like "absolute" and "unconditional" in your attempt to describe what you see as an opposing view is really a straw man. Nobody (at least on this forum) would argue that the right to keep and bear arms isn't subject to the same kinds of lawful restrictions as is any other right, enumerated or otherwise. What I and others (at least on this forum) seek is not a society in which everyone is armed; we want only fairness and equal protection which California's present system does not provide.

My favorite analogy for the Second Amendment is this:

"A well-crafted pizza, being necessary to the Epicurian pleasures of a free State, the right of the people to grow and harvest tomatoes, shall not be infringed."

It says that the State has a compelling interest in Epicurian pleasures (which may not have been clear previously), that ability of people to make pizza supports that end (which may not have been agreed on by everyone prior to this statement, so we stipulate it here), therefore we single out the right to raise tomatoes (which few people would say people didn't already have a right to grow) as something worthy of mention in the Constitution. People have always had the right to grow tomatoes, and we're saying that right is so important to the gastronomic interests of our nation of foodies that it deserves specific mention. It doesn't disparage uses for tomatoes other than making pizza sauce. Removing the hot-button topic of weapons from the statement makes it easier for some people to examine objectively.

...So whether or not it was the intention of the founders that every Tom, Dick, and Harry should have unfettered access to guns as gun right proponents believe already seems like kind of a silly question: even if that was their intention, they could no more foresee the future proliferation of gun violence than any other mere mortal could have....

There's that "everyone" and "unfettered" straw man again, plus you have conflated lawfully carrying weapons with criminal misuse of weapons. Nobody on this forum would argue that a person who has been declared legally incompetent or someone who is in the country illegally should have guns. The conflation of lawful use and crime is particularly sad considering that rates of "gun violence" have been on the decline (as have other forms of violent crime) since about 1994 - The very period during which a majority of US states have switched from no-issue or may-issue laws on the issuance of concealed firearm permits (such as California's) to shall-issue (purely objective) systems. If allowing people who meet a specific set of criteria the choice to carry concealed weapons caused violent crime, it would be obvious by now. In the absence of such a connection, there is no legitimate, rational justification for disallowing it.

...I do find it a little disingenuous that gun-toting Dems who, until recently, thought just as poorly as the rest of us did of the Court's conservative majority, are now hailing those very same wackos who gave us Bush v. Gore as being paragons of legal wisdom and stridently proclaiming the integrity and inviolability of "the law of the land." Please. These are the same barking mad, foaming at the mouth assholes who gave us Citizens United, who only attained the bench through the patronage of other barking mad, foaming at the mouth assholes. I'm happy for you that they produced a ruling you like, but let's not pretend that makes them any less fallible, or our "law of the land" any less corrupted, than they were before Heller.

The issue here is not the character of the people who happen to sit on the Supreme Court or any particular decisions they have made about issues other than the one under discussion, which is whether or not people have a Constitutional right to carry concealed firearms. That is a red herring. Judge England's statement that the Second Amendment "does not create a fundamental right to carry a concealed weapon in public" tells me that he's confused about the nature of rights and the role of government. The Bill of Rights talks about rights that were already understood, at least by the authors, to exist. Our foundation documents don't create any rights, they define the nature and scope of government.

[No Elephants]

48. "Compelling state interest" and "rational basis" are two separate standards. Courts apply one or

the other in any given case, not both. You've conflated them.

"The Bill of Rights talks about rights that were already understood, at least by the authors, to exist."

Not really.


Originally, the Constitution was not a document of individual rights at all. It was a document that defined which powers the federal government would have either exclusively or with the states, period. However, while it was being circulated for adoption by states, both states and individuals became concerned that certain things had not been stated expressly.

The reply was. "Gee. we thought that went without saying." However, to placate the states and individuals, aA promise was made to state them expressly A.S.A.P. via amendments. Hence, the Bill of Rights.

The Bill of Rights originally spoke of which rights people would have against the federal government--limits on the power of federal government, period.

Quite a few of the rights, if not all, mentioned in the Bill of Rights had been denied colonists by the former central government, namely King George III and the British Parliament. And whatever they had not denied, they had the power to deny, if they wished.

[primavera]

54. Spoken like a con law survivor

:hi:

[slackmaster]

55. Neither of those standards applies to California's obsolete system of issuing CCW permits

I have yet to see anyone produce a convincing defense of the law that we're discussing in this thread.

The Bill of Rights originally spoke of which rights people would have against the federal government--limits on the power of federal government, period.

That deficiency has been corrected, at least for some rights, through incorporation so that they also limit the power of the states. The incorporation of the Second Amendment is incomplete. It's a work in progress.

[primavera]

58. You'd be surprised by how much of that I'd agree with

Where we part ways is in what constitutes a rational basis for a restriction. I confess, I've drifted rather far afield from the original topic of concealed carry and am looking more at private gun ownership in general. The statistic that matters most to me is that roughly 30,000 Americans die, and roughly twice that many are injured, by guns every year in this country. Few would argue that the deaths of 3,000 Americans on 9/11 were insufficient to give the state an interest in taking legislative action to address the matter. Yet we suffer an equal number of fatalities from guns every month, month after month, year after year, and apparently for perpetuity because we can't agree that this unacceptable status quo is adequate to justify state intervention. You say that liberties should not be infringed upon without good reason, and I wholeheartedly agree, but 30,000 dead Americans every year sure sounds like an awfully good reason to me.

Truly, many of the things we enacted after 9/11 did more harm than good and I am not an advocate of irresponsible legislation that does not address the problem. Neither am I eager to restrict the liberties of responsible gun owners, and I'm the first to admit that most gun owners are in fact responsible and pose no threat to anyone. The problem is discriminating between those who are responsible and those who aren't. After someone shoots up a school, everyone agrees that individual was a psycho who should never have been allowed to own a gun. That's easy, hindsight is always 20-20. The problem is that, the day before he shot up a school, that very same individual was, as far as anyone knew, a law abiding citizen whose right to keep and bear arms gun rights proponents fought to the death to defend. Honestly, I have no enthusiasm for depriving responsible gun owners of liberties, but, in the absence of some crystal ball that would allows us to know in advance who is responsible and who isn't, how are we to know? Something must be done, and with an urgency equal to that we demonstrated after 9/11. Our fellow citizens are dying, right now, right this very instant, even as we speak. Statistically, just since I started writing this post, two or three more Americans will have been killed by guns. We can't just sit by and watch that happen and do nothing. God knows, I am no expert, and if the gun rights community has a solution that will reduce the number of per capita gun deaths to a level comparable to that found in other developed countries, I for one will be only too happy to hear it. I haven't heard it. All I hear from the gun rights community is how trigger locks are ineffective, how onerous a burden it would be have to store the gun and its ammunition in separate locations, how unreasonable it would be to impose mandatory safety instruction requirements on gun owners, how Americans should be free to carry their guns into bars and schools and anywhere else they wish, how there's no need to close the gun show loophole, and so on and so on - always it's a protest of how ineffective and intrusive any measure to curb gun mortalities would be. Well, okay, if you say so, but you're kind of digging your own grave here, because what that tells me is that there are no viable half measures likely to be effective. However, I can look to Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, Canada, and, well, pretty much the rest of the developed world, all of whom either heavily restrict or outright ban private gun ownership, and I can't help but notice that all of their per capita gun mortality rates are a minuscule fraction of what ours is. So, if the gun community has no ideas for how to reduce the gun mortality rate to a bearable level, well, the rest of the developed world does have ideas on the subject and they appear to be working, but you're probably not going to like them because they are, one and all, way, way, waaaay more restrictive than anything gun control advocates have ever even dreamt of in this country. You know I have great respect for your views, slackmaster, but if the best you can offer is a continuation of a status quo that has produced, continues to produce, and shows no sign of ceasing to produce an unacceptably high number of bullet-ridden corpses every year, what would you have me do? I'm sorry, but more of same simply isn't good enough, we have to do better somehow.

[X_Digger]

57. Look at the preamble to the bill of rights.

THE Conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution.

The Bill of Rights is obviously a limit on government power. It's a 'the government shall not' document, not a 'the people can' document.

If the folks who wrote it didn't intend an individual right, why did they go back to their respective states and write such into their own state constitutions:

The present-day Pennsylvania Constitution, using language adopted in 1790, declares: "The right of the citizens to bear arms in defence of themselves and the State shall not be questioned."

Vermont: Adopted in 1777, the Vermont Constitution closely tracks the Pennsylvania Constitution. It states "That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the State.."

Kentucky: The 1792 Kentucky constitution was nearly contemporaneous with the Second Amendment, which was ratified in 1791. Kentucky declared: "That the right of the citizens to bear arms in defence of themselves and the State, shall not be questioned."

Delaware: "A person has the right to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and State, and for hunting and recreational use."

Alabama: The Alabama Constitution, adopted in 1819, guarantees "that every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state"

[primavera]

59. Yep, and look at where that has brought us

Undeniably, the founders were writing at a time when the United States had recently declared its independence from its colonial parent and the freedom of the individual from state oppression was just about the only thing on their mind at the time. And what our unswerving devotion to that 200 year old set of topical priorities has given us is a country in which, more often than not, the government is barred from acting to protect the public good, where private corporations can screw over the public with impunity, where private interests can buy and sell our politicians and rig our elections, where people kill each other in the streets in numbers far surpassing any other developed country, where religious fundamentalism drives our public policy debates, where huge numbers of our fellow citizens go without health care, where 90% of the country's wealth is owned by 10% of the population, need I go on?

[X_Digger]

60. It's one thing to argue that it should be changed, it's quite another..

to argue that it doesn't mean what it says.

Feel free to campaign for repeal of the second amendment, as well as the 45 or so explicit state level constitutional protections. Of course then it would merely become an unenumerated right under the ninth amendment.

[primavera]

62. Normally I'd agree with you

But we live in this weird legal landscape in which a 200 year old document is expected to provide all legal guidance necessary for eternity. At that point, one of necessity has to engage in interpretation. There are two schools of interpretation: the one embraced by sane liberals (excepting, of course, gun right liberals) and the majority of legal scholars, which views the Constitution as a dynamic thing that evolves to accommodate modern conditions; and the originalist one embraced by mad dog right wingers like Scalia, which views the Constitution as some sort of immutable religious artifact, to be read literally word for word. Personally, as a general principle, I think it's kind of silly that we have to articulate every public policy goal in terms of its relationship to a 200 year old document. Nevertheless, the prevailing interpretation of the 2nd Amendment has, until very recently, declined to extend a universal right to keep and bear arms to anyone without regard for whether it serves the purpose of maintaining a well-regulated militia. So, there hasn't been a conflict between what the Constitution said and its interpretation, that is, at least not until five barking mad wingnuts took over the Court and successfully imposed their feudal values system on us.

[X_Digger]

63. Well, either follow the constitution or change it. I don't see a middle ground in there.

That way lies madness. It sets a dangerous precedent that there really is no rule of law, if you spin the right 'interpretation'.

eta: This 'collectivist' interpretation is the new kid on the block.

Hideous decision, but check out the text of the Dred Scott decision..

"It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went" (emphasis added).

[primavera]

65. Nope, you're absolutely right about that

And I do follow the Constitution, even when it's misinterpreted by rightwing wackos. But I have no illusions that it's a perfect system and it's worth noting imperfections in the hopes of one day improving upon it.

[X_Digger]

66. Inertia has seemed to be the big challenge..

If you look at a list of constitutional amendments, we haven't had a substantive one since 1971. (I consider the 27th a stunt by newt.)

Are people just too lazy to fight for a change? Dunno.

eta: List- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution

[primavera]

67. Oh, man, I wish I knew

I was just this moment thinking, I get so tired of hearing constantly about why we can't do anything to try to make the world a better place. Consider global climate change. We face a global crisis of potentially biblical proportions, yet all we ever hear is how we can't reduce vehicle emissions, that would constrain people's freedom to choose to drive gas guzzlers; we can't reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, that would cut jobs from the oil and gas industry; we can't rely more on alternative, cleaner energy sources, that would jack up the prices of energy; we can't reduce industrial pollution, that would increase production costs and put our industries at a competitive disadvantage... always there's a reason why we can't do anything to improve upon the problem. Well, shit, I guess we may as well just lay down and die then, since it's all obviously hopeless and there's not a thing we could ever possibly do to change matters. :banghead:

[X_Digger]

68. Selfishness..

When's the last time a president had the balls to tell people they're going to have to make sacrifices to get something done? Carter?

That's the last time I can remember, and look where it got him. :(

[primavera]

69. Sounds about right

I sure do miss Jimmy.

[X_Digger]

71. If we'd implemented 1/5th of the energy savings he was shooting for..

We'd be in a hell of a better place. *sigh*

[Vinee]

37. kind of hard to stretch "shall not be infringed" to "shall be infringed" too.

[No Elephants]

49. Not really. Similarly absolute seeming language abounds in the Bill of Rights,

yet the Supreme Court has found exception after exception for centuries.

[tularetom]

13. What I want to know is what's the real reason the sheriff denied these permits?

If he really thinks the applicant needs a reason, that's his opinion, and the court apparently agrees.

But at least a few of his fellow sheriffs have used concealed weapon permits as political gifts to campaign contributors.

[slackmaster]

16. It was a huge scandal in Orange County

The only rational solution is to implement purely objective criteria for issuing permits.

We don't live in Mayberry any more. The Sheriff does not know everyone in his jurisdiction personally.

[tularetom]

22. That may be true in your part of the world but some of us are still in Mayberry

We have fewer than 20k residents in our county.

The former sheriff openly solicited campaign contributions by promising to issue CCW permits as an inducement to contribute.

Some of us pointed that out and wound up on the shit list. The sheriff even attempted to put our volunteer fire/EMT group out of business in retaliation for our actions.

There were no repercussions (other than he stopped publicly promising to issue permits) and the sheriff retired a few years later. He died in 2008, but he stayed pissed off at me for the rest of his life.

[slackmaster]

23. I live in San Diego (city and county)

Tulare is like a different country.

[U4ikLefty]

41. Ahh, San Diego...that explains a lot. nt

[slackmaster]

44. Yes, we have a wonderful climate, good food, and good schools here

:hi:

[Le Taz Hot]

52. Ah, more geographical elitism on DU.

Imagine my surprise. :eyes:

[petronius]

61. Out of curiousity, which post did you think was geographically elitist?

I'd say that either, both, or neither could be entitled to the eyeroll, depending entirely on how the reader chose to interpret the tone... :shrug:

[slackmaster]

64. I was wondering the same thing

Is the fact that I live in San Diego supposed to explain something bad about me, or something good, or something indifferent such as my occasional use of surfing idioms or references to Mexican food?

[tularetom]

28. I don't live in Tulare I only grew up there

I'm in Mariposa County which has its plusses and minuses.

On the plus side I have shot doves from my patio (we have 40 acres here and we have only one neighbor within a mile of our house).

The minuses are we have to go 12 miles to a gas station, 30 miles to a decent grocery store, and we regularly wind up with brain dead right wing politicians.

[jpak]

15. K&R The Holy Second Amendment is not absolute - no matter what the GOP/NRA gun extremists say

yup

[safeinOhio]

26. But, but, but...

civil rights are absolute.....:sarcasm:

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ileus]

19. Another sad day for our friends in Ca...

[The Nexus]

20. K&R but it's not over by a long shot!!!!! nt

[alp227]

21. England is a GW Bush nominee serving since 2002

http://www.caed.uscourts.gov/caed/staticOther/page_1525.htm

Concealed carry does have its downside. Someone unexpectedly could bring a gun...

[fascisthunter]

27. YAY.... sanity

[friendly_iconoclast]

33. There were a lot of people on DU claiming that Heller and McDonald would fail.

Time will tell.

[No Elephants]

51. McDonald was not exactly unanimous.

Even the guy who wrote the majority opinion (Alito) found it necessary to write a separate opinon.


"JUSTICE ALITO announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II–A, II–B, II–D, III–A, and III–B, in which THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE SCALIA, JUSTICE KENNEDY, and JUSTICE THOMAS join, and an opinion with respect to Parts II–C, IV, and V, in which THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE SCALIA, and JUSTICE KENNEDY join.


(Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor joined Justice Breyer's dissent.)

[Le Taz Hot]

53. THANK YOU!

Signed,
A Relieved Californian.

[Xithras]

70. The problem with California is that CCW rules are all over the map.

I live in a county that hands them out to any non-felon who asks for one. You DO have to give a reason, but it can be as simple as "I fear for my safety because of police department cutbacks."

The county just to the north of me doesn't hand them out to ANYONE. For ANY reason.

This can lead to some very interesting problems, because California CCW permits are valid statewide. When a resident from an issuing county visits a non-issuing county, it can lead to dangerous confrontations between gun owners and local police. If the local police aren't used to dealing with CCW holders, they simply assume that anyone with a concealed weapon is carrying illegally.

[slackmaster]

73. I could have easily gotten one in San Diego when I was managing a campaign for city council

I decided it wasn't worth the trouble because we had a pretty low profile. Next time may be different.

[lark]

72. Isn't it sad when sanity surprises us, because we see it so seldom?

:hurts: