The National Rifle Association filed a cert petition with the United States Supreme Court through its official state organization the California Rifle and Pistol Association in which it asked the justices to hear its appeal of its California concealed carry lawsuit which lost before an eleven judge panel of 9th circuit court of appeals.
The 9th circuit held that there is no right of the general public to carry a concealed handgun in public and since the plaintiffs in the Peruta v. San Diego concealed carry lawsuit never sought to openly carry a handgun in public it chose not to decide whether or not there is a right under the Second Amendment to openly carry a firearm in public.
The NRA filed a petition asking that its case be reheard before all of the active judges in which it argued that California can, should and must ban the Open Carry of firearms. According to the National Rifle Association, Open Carry is perverse.
The NRA petition was denied without a single 9th circuit judge dissenting to the denial of the Full Court petition.
The NRA then filed a cert petition with the US Supreme Court asking it to hear its appeal.
San Diego declined to file a brief in opposition to the cert petition saying that the State of California would be filing an opposition, which it did.
The State of California opposition brief asked the Supreme Court to deny the NRA’s cert petition saying that it should wait for my California Open Carry lawsuit to be decided by the 9th circuit court of appeals.
There is one brief left to file in my appeal (my reply brief) and then my appeal will be fully briefed and ready to be decided by a panel of 9th circuit judges.
In order to save time, I filed a petition for my case to be initially heard before an eleven judge en banc panel instead of a three judge panel. En banc petitions are rarely granted and petitions for an appeal to be initially heard before an en banc panel (bypassing a three judge panel) are almost never granted.
But my California Open Carry lawsuit is unique. The grounds for granting my petition are the same (and more) for granting the en banc petition to hear the Peruta v. San Diego concealed carry lawsuit. This time the question before the en banc court is whether or not there is a right under the Second Amendment to openly carry a firearm in public. My petition was filed 70 days ago and is still pending.
We now wait for Peruta to file his Reply brief when that happens the justices will meet in their regularly scheduled conference and vote on whether or not to hear the Peruta case, assuming the Peruta case survives being put on the “dead list” prepared by the clerks of the Supreme Court in which case it will automatically be denied without ever having been discussed in conference.
The Peruta concealed carry cert petition will be denied just as every concealed carry cert petition has been denied. The State of California has filed its opposition. The so called gun-rights groups have filed their Amicus briefs which all claim that when the United States Supreme Court said that there is no right to concealed carry under the Second Amendment (several times) and that Open Carry is the right guaranteed by the Constitution, what the Supreme Court actually meant is the opposite of what it said.
Is there any wonder why the Supreme Court has turned down every single concealed carry appeal? All nine justices who sat on the Heller court said that concealed carry is not a right under the Second Amendment, that is the only thing all nine justices were in wholehearted agreement. But these lawyers keep filing appeals with the court which claim that all nine justices meant the exact opposite of what they said. You would be offended if that happened to you. The justices are human too. Why wouldn’t they be offended?
Should my California Open Carry case go before the US Supreme Court it is I who will be arguing that the Supreme Court justices meant exactly what they said and it will be the State of California arguing that the justices meant the opposite of what they said.
And we know how well that has worked out.
Charles Nichols
President of California Right To Carry
http://CaliforniaRightToCarry.org
