Just before the 220th Anniversary of the Second Amendment and the Bill of Rights, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill into law that makes it a criminal offense to openly carry an unloaded handgun in public.
A 1967 law made it a crime to openly carry a loaded handgun in public.
Together, the two laws make California’s handgun ban even more restrictive than the handgun ban that was rejected by the United States Supreme Court in 2008.
Two weeks ago, a lawsuit challenging the California ban on an openly carried loaded handgun, was filed in the Central District Federal Court of Los Angeles, by Charles Nichols, President of CaliforniaRightToCarry.org.
Defendants in Federal lawsuits are expected to waive service according to the rules of the court. The deadline for Governor Brown and Attorney General Harris to waive service was just passed.
Mr. Nichols says he made repeated attempts to contact the defendants, but those attempts were unanswered.
Nichols says the governor and attorney general know the handgun ban is unconstitutional, and they are trying to prevent the case being decided by a Federal judge. Nichols said “I fully expect that the defendants will continue to delay and obstruct this lawsuit.”
Nicholls says the defendants will be formally served just after the New Year. “It appears I will have to force them into Federal Court to answer the complaint.”
Expecting additional delays, Nicholls says the defendants will probably respond by asking for more time to respond to the lawsuit. If they are given more time, or even if they are not, Nicholls says the next obstruction will be for them to claim they were never “properly” served.
