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California's Handgun Open Carry Ban Sets The Record Straight

The Unloaded Handgun Open Carry Ban Assembly Bill 144 which was passed by the California Legislature and signed into law by Governor Brown in 2011. The law applies not only to incorporated cities but throughout the county where the discharge of firearms is generally prohibited.

California has 58 counties. There may be some rural county in the state which does not have a general ban on the discharge of firearms but if you live in an urban county like Los Angeles, San Francisco and Orange Counties you are prohibited from openly carrying a handgun, be it loaded or unloaded; throughout the entire county.

There are a few misinformed so-called Open Carry advocates who have been falsely claiming that AB 144 has a lot of loopholes. It does not.

Unless you fall into one of the categories carved out for the special interest groups, such as bill collectors, repo-men and insurance adjusters; it is a crime to openly carry a handgun virtually everywhere in the state of California.

One such spokesperson claimed that simply being interviewed on camera by a reporter qualifies as an exemption under the law, it does not.

Although there are a large number of exemptions for openly carrying an unloaded handgun, these exemptions are all very narrowly drawn and you can be certain that California's police officers will not know what they are.

So even if one happens to be one of the very few people in this state who falls into one of the exempt categories, it does not mean that you won't be arrested or, at a minimum, unlawfully detained in handcuffs while the police try to figure out whether or not to book you.

AB 144 applies only to handguns. It is still legal to Openly Carry unloaded rifles and shotguns in non-prohibited areas. Prohibited areas include the area within 1,000 feet of a K-12 public or private school, unless one has written permission from the school.

Ironically, the so-called Gun Free School Zones which extend 1,000 feet from a school grounds are areas people are generally allowed to openly carry an unloaded firearm with matching ammunition, handguns included, if a person has written permission from the school.

Public K-12 schools are unlikely to grant permission but the thousands of private K-12 schools don't have the resources to defend themselves from lawsuits for not granting permission.

It won't be too long before that sole loophole is exploited by informed open carry activists. Public K-12 schools often have a private K-12 school nearby. A person does not need permission from both schools where the school zones overlap. Just the one is sufficient. Penal Code section 12031 - The Loaded Open Carry Ban The ban on openly carrying a loaded firearm in incorporated cities and in unincorporated areas of a county where the discharge of firearms is generally prohibited (i.e., everywhere in the county) was passed in 1967.

Photo Credit: WikiMedia Commons

The California Legislature thought they were passing a bill which would just disarm the Black Panther Party whose members were conducting what they called "Police Patrols."

The Black Panther Party members would monitor police radio calls and rush to the scene of arrests to confront police officers. They were armed with loaded firearms.

State Assemblyman Don Mulford introduced a bill to prevent such activities. On the day it was to be heard in committee, the Black Panther Party engaged in a spur of the moment publicity stunt. They marched into the state capitol openly bearing loaded firearms to protest the bill.

Needless to say, the bill sailed through both houses of the state legislature and was signed into law, as an emergency measure, two months later.

Today, the bill is used to prosecute everyone from openly carrying a loaded firearm in public, even hunters, which the then legislature bent over backwards to exclude from the law. The lawsuit to restore Loaded Open Carry to California A Federal Lawsuit has been filed seeking an injunction against California's ban on openly carrying a loaded firearm in public - California Penal Code section 12031.

An injunction against the law which makes it a crime to openly carry a loaded firearm in public will, of course, make California's ban on openly carrying an unloaded handgun meaningless.

The lawsuit was filed by Charles Nichols, President of California Right To Carry .

Can States ban firearms from being Openly Carried? Both the United States Supreme Court and the California State Supreme Courts say "No!"

The Brady Center continues to spread its propaganda that the US Supreme Court's 2008 Heller decision guarantees only the right to keep a loaded firearm in one's home and the rest of the 64 page decision is meaningless.

A convicted felon and gang member, Peter Vongxay, made that same argument before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2009. In February of 2010 the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the US Supreme Court meant what it said about who may carry a firearm and the manner in which a firearm may be carried in public.

The US Supreme Court held that when carrying a firearm in public, it must be openly carried and that states may ban concealed carry if they wish.

Worse for Mr. Vongxay, the US Supreme Court also held that convicted felons do not have a constitutional right to even possess a firearm, let alone to carry one in public.

Since then, Federal Courts of Appeal from across the nation have come to the same conclusion in over 140 cases.

Since 1924, the California Courts have relied on a 1924 California State Supreme Court decision which also stated that a ban on openly carried firearms is unconstitutional.

Some reporters will continue to report the Brady Center propaganda as gospel. Hopefully, there will be a few who do a little fact checking first.

Fortunately, the question as to whether or not the California legislature can lawfully ban openly carried loaded firearms is now up to the Federal Courts to decide, which they have already done.

Judges can't issue injunctions on their own. Somebody has to file a lawsuit asking that an injunction be issued. Somebody has.

The leadership of the so-called gun rights groups such as the National Rifle Association, the Second Amendment Foundation and the CalGuns Foundation all oppose Open Carry. They believe that people should only be permitted to carry firearms concealed and only with government issued permission slips.

These groups brought two separate Federal lawsuits attempting to force California into issuing concealed carry permits. Both cases lost.

Why did they lose? For the same reasons mentioned above. Open Carry is the only constitutionally protected manner of carry under both the United States and California Constitutions according to the Supreme Courts for both the state and Federal governments.

Read More: Is California's Gun Free Zone Expansion Bill Dead?