Last month, in Carralero v. Bonta, a federal judge in Orange County declared it unconstitutional to prohibit guns in a host of places California had designated gun-free. Those spaces include not just quintessentially sensitive places like banks, playgrounds, and hospitals, but also the parking lots of schools and government buildings, even particularly sensitive ones like police stations, prisons, and primary and secondary schools. Perhaps most shockingly, the court ruled that the Second Amendment does not even permit the state to ban guns in the parking lots of facilities storing nuclear weapons. Yes, nuclear weapons.

The Carralero decision takes a sledgehammer to SB2, the California law enacted in response to the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision striking down restrictive handgun licensing laws. And it further underlines how dangerously chaotic the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment jurisprudence has become.

Last year, gun owners and advocacy organizations sued to stop SB2 from going into effect on Jan. 1, 2024. The plaintiffs challenged the restrictions in more than a dozen places, like hospitals, public transit, playgrounds, parks, stadiums, theaters, zoos, libraries, museums, and banks. The Carralero court agreed with them in every single instance. Using the new method the Supreme Court laid out for Second Amendment challenges—which requires a contemporary law to find support in America’s “historical tradition of firearms regulation”—the judge found no relevant historical analogs. …

But that’s not all. The decision also invalidated the parking lot restrictions for all of the locations in California law, even for places that no one disputed were correctly classified as sensitive. In other words, even in those places where the challengers acknowledged that guns could be banned—like in jails, airports, and courthouses—California now cannot keep guns out of the parking lots adjacent to those spaces. To reach that conclusion, the court resorted to a hypertextualist reading of the Supreme Court’s case law. Those cases, wrote the court, “describe sensitive places where carry may be prohibited using the preposition ‘in,’ not ‘near’ or ‘around.’ ” With just four total sentences of analysis, the court concluded that “SB2’s designation of parking areas as sensitive places is inconsistent with the Second Amendment.” …

In comparing the Carralero case with other recent decisions, one striking feature of the opinion is its black-and-white quality. There are no gray areas, close questions, or hard calls here. The challengers win on every claim they make, something I’m hard-pressed to recall happening in any other wide-ranging challenge to gun laws post-Bruen, despite reading hundreds of these decisions. The court dispenses with all of the challenges to California’s law in a lean 43 pages, dwarfing the tome-length 261 pages it took the 2nd Circuit to review similar restrictions, or the 184 pages a New York federal district court took to assess that state’s post-Bruen sensitive-place law. Despite its brevity, the decision’s black-and-white character bleeds through to its dystopian, American carnage–like view of contemporary society, which conjures images of bad guys lurking on every corner. The opinion begins darkly: “We live in dangerous times.” It ends, if anything, even more bleakly: “SB2 requires that law-abiding citizens open themselves up for slaughter at the hands of people flaunting the law and creates numerous areas ripe for mass murder by ensuring there is no one there to protect people before ‘the intervention of society in his behalf.’ ”

The irony here is that the great weight of empirical evidence suggests that the proliferation of guns in public places makes them less safe, not more. So, in an important sense, the ruling creates its own reality. If it stands, we will indeed live in more dangerous times. …

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has already put it on hold and will probably reverse the decision as to at least some, if not all, of the locations. But Bruen’s demand that courts blind themselves to the contemporary costs of gun proliferation in the name of fealty to the past is a problem the appeals court cannot remedy. Only the Supreme Court can correct that flaw. For the sake of the country, it should take the earliest opportunity to do so.

— Jacob D. Charles in The Federal Judicial Ruling That Would Put Guns on California Playgrounds

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

65 COMMENTS

  1. A bit of good news:

    The CEO of CCWSafe just sent out an email to all CA policy holders specifically stating that CCWSafe will continue to cover members regardless of SB2, and that SB2 “has no effect on coverage”.

    If Newsom and the Ninth want to ignore SCOTUS and USC, then they shouldn’t be surprised that those who honor the Constitution will ignore Newsom’s political dances.

    • “If Newsom and the Ninth want to ignore SCOTUS and USC, then they shouldn’t be surprised that those who honor the Constitution will ignore Newsom’s political dances.” The real test at this point is taking place in Illinois. With approximately 50,000 of the estimated 2,000,000+ semi-auto rifles/shotguns having been registered by the January 1, 2024 deadline, as required by law. It remains to be seen just how far Gov. Pricktzer will be willing to take the fight and more importantly how far the POTG in Illinois will allow him. Much will be learned as this fight continues and may well determine the direction of 2nd Amendment Rights. for generations to come.

      • And here is the next test of the resolve of the POTG in Illinois.
        Judge Denies A Preliminary Injunchttps://www.ammoland.com/2024/01/judge-denies-a-preliminary-injunction-against-the-illinois-gun-ban/tion Against The Illinois Gun Ban
        How’s is relying on the Court’s to determine their Rights…Working Out.

  2. This is an absurd argument.

    Why would a parking lot next to a “sensitive place” be a sensitive place when it is explicitly a parking lot and not that place?

    a parking lot is not a jail. there are no prisoners in the parking lots. A parking lot is not a courthouse, no trials occur in the parking lot.

    saying that places NEAR sensitive places are sensitive places would quickly mean everywhere is a sensitive place.

    • Playground is a sensitive.
      The park for the playground is a sensitive place.
      If you plan on going to the playground your home is a sensitive place.
      Everyplace along your travel path from your home and to the playground is a sensitive place.

      • Of course everywhere along the route is sensitive. I take my sensitive bits along with me, after all.

      • Yup. WHY? Because I am IN those places as I travel, park my car, get out and take care of my business or play.
        This SB2 reads like a wish list from a paranoid reclusive scairdycat politician who KNOWS they are all after me (said politician) because I’m a traitourous tyrant.

        • Tionico, these scairdycat politicians are also throwing crap on the wall and looking to see what sticks. In their minds some crap on the wall is better than none. Truth is they are full of crap and need only look in a mirror.

    • “This is an absurd argument.
      Why would a parking lot next to a “sensitive place” be a sensitive place when it is explicitly a parking lot and not that place?”

      The end goal is to make so many places “sensitive places” that POTG will cease carrying and since there is no place they can carry, then there is no need to even have a carry permit program for citizens.

    • “Why would a parking lot next to a “sensitive place” be a sensitive place when it is explicitly a parking lot and not that place?”

      It is an argument designed to disarm you on your private property.by preventing from you from carrying a gun in your car (also your private property). It is not new, it was tried in FL years ago. It works like this; say you necessarily must go to a “sensitive place”. You put a gun in your car, and drive to said “place” – uh oh! no place legal to park! You can a) break the law or b) return home and leave the gun there and resume your hapless attempt to conduct necessary business. This forces you into BEING UNARMED WHEN YOU RETURN TO YOUR PROPERTY – after your necessary chore is accomplished.

      This creates a huge risk for those who most need protection when they return to their homes. Like those who live alone in undated communities. Or people being stalked…

      No longer a thing in FL, although there were casualties. Thank you, Marion Hammer and the NRA, among others.

    • Their assumption is clear, this ruling will PUT guns in childrens playgroungs NOT PREVENT them. There is a difference between allowing and requiring,or banning . Their world lives in absoloutes, always blood in the streets/ wild west
      (which wasn’t as wild as hollywood projects).

  3. “But Bruen’s demand that courts blind themselves to the contemporary costs of gun proliferation . . . ”

    Complete and utter BS. Gun control is the cause of problems, and cures no problems. When almost everybody over the age of 12 had a gun, we didn’t have mass shootings. Sure, we had criminals like Al Capone, but gun control hasn’t eliminated criminals either. When the gun control zealots face the fact that disarming honest citizens only encourages criminals, we can start having an intelligent conversation.

    Genuine gun control would be measures like sentences for violent offenses are doubled and tripled if the offense is carried out using a weapon. Simple bank robbery is good for ten years? Add a knife and get twenty. Add a gun, and get thirty. Simple math there, and it will go a long way toward solving some of society’s problems. Would that put an end to bank robbery? Certainly not – but it will effectively end that one robber’s career.

    • But then we don’t have the crime rates to panic you so we have something to save you from.

  4. When the clock is turned back to Historical Analogies what one finds is the vast majority of Gun Control laws applied to Blacks, Catholics, Irish, Indians, etc. So one after one historical Gun laws are racist, bigoted, racist, bigoted, rascist which of course makes today’s Gun Control in any shape, matter or form an agenda Rooted in Racism and Genocide.

  5. “In comparing the Carralero case with other recent decisions, one striking feature of the opinion is its black-and-white quality. There are no gray areas, close questions, or hard calls here.”

    Well, it oughta be, considering the referenced Amendment has no gray areas. Would that all 2nd Amendment jurisprudence was straightforward.

    • The answer of why divorce is so expensive – “Because it’s WORTH it. “, applies equally true in the above example.
      The decree is long overdue.

      • How true, in more ways than one! But this decision…que lastima…what a pity…so sad that the psychotic ally (spell check strikes again) afraid will now have so much more to fear in their little minds.

      • It was tried, didn’t work. Probably better to get the restraining order and set up for success if they try to violate it.

    • Lol, yeah. If experience serves me well, divorce is no guarantee that you’ll be left alone after you’ve paid dearly. These leftists really don’t know when to quit, and they won’t, and when it turns really ugly, it will be your fault. Sounds like regular divorce to me.

    • Their was a quote from CS Lewis about how omnipotent moral busybodies will pursue us without end because they believe it is for our own good.

    • I really hope more Libertarians call for a national divorce.
      And they can stay with the Liberals and the Left.

      Because they will never support the Traditionalists who refuse to go along with this cultural destruction. A Traditionalist would never support drug leg@liz@tion. They would never support the leg@liz@tion of prostitution.

      The Libertarians want all that. Fine. So you stay in California.

    • Divorce could be avoided by shrinking the Federal Government back to it’s original Four Cabinet Departments. Let the people in the states decide everything else.

  8. The author fails to note a very important caveat: the decision (and SB2) apply only to CCW licensees, who have already been vetted and are an exceedingly small risk of harm to the public, and more critically, SB2 massively expands the “sensitive areas” where licensed carrying of a firearm is now prohibited, adding huge areas where it was perfectly legal to carry under the law in effect up until December 31, 2023. If licensees were not a problem under the old law, then there is no reason to suspect that they will be a problem if the trial court decision is upheld. This author makes it seems as if anybody and everybody would be allowed to carry in “sensitive places” under the judge’s decision, and that is simply not the case. I have to assume as well that this author believes that the Second Amendment is obsolete and not really important enough to insist upon.

    • Mark,

      A discussion/debate worth having, but . . . let’s get some basic principles agreed upon, before engaging in discussions like this, eh? From whence doth the right of the (i) federal government, or (ii) the state and local governments, to impose those limitations IN THE FIRST PLACE??

      Where is the basic authority underlying the entire premise of “gun control”, whether federal, state, or local? Tell me that, then we can discuss the rest.

  9. Finally, a judge with a brain ih his head. And in Califorina, no less? What is the world coming to these days?

    Perfect logic. So they say my churchhouse or bank or doctor’s office is a ‘sensitive place’ and I can’t carry my sidearm in there. fine. What that means is the armed criminal wanting to do me harm of one sort or another no longer needs to go inside the ‘sensitive place” he only needs to lurk in the car park I must use when I go there. Where SB2 also handily disarms me. Thanks to the Gabbling Nuisance, the robber’s job and security is greatly enhanced by this travesty of “law”.

    Good job this judge has a strong command of the english tongue. He clearly comprehends the “subtle’ difference between “IN” and “NEAR” and “CLOSE”. Too bad testing for comprehension of our language is not a qualification for holding public office.

  10. “Bruen’s demand that courts blind themselves to the contemporary costs of gun proliferation in the name of fealty to the past is a problem the appeals court cannot remedy.”

    Slate writers demand the public blind themselves to the historic and ongoing benefits of individual access to the effective means of self defense.

  11. This “anti” obviously does not see the problem here. Its not that there are some places that can be agreed upon or even prohibited, its that California is trying to set precedent and these are just a ‘trial baloon’ things. If they can get this through it means the door is wide open for them to build upon it and eventually expand it to any place outside of your home by simply declaring it a ‘public’ space.

    Imagine if you could only speak in your home – you would still have the 1st amendment right but it would effectively be negated by not being able to exercise it outside your home.

    This is the danger when a ‘government’ starts messing with controlling ‘inalienable’ rights – there is no stopping point for them other than removing them from power.

  12. Guess the new and improved TTAG missed it… But, to be fair, it only happened 6 or 7 hours ago…

    The suspect in a shooting at an Iowa high school has died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.

    Multiple people were shot during the shooter’s rampage at the high school in Perry, Iowa, Thursday, but none were immediately confirmed to have died. but the shooter was the only person to be confirmed dead. The official said at least one of those shot is a school administrator.

  13. Common sense has never been an attribute of the Far Right Fanatics. As the article said the Far Right Fanatics see everything in either all black or all white with no varying shades of grey in between. It’s the hallmark of people who are not only paranoid but not products of higher education either as none of them have been taught critical thinking.

    Let’s face facts only a court that was totally demented would allow firearms on the property of a nuclear facility.

    • dacian, the DUNDERHEAD, what part of “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED” don’t you and your hoplophobes understand?

      Seems to me that it is you hoplophobes who are paranoid of an inanimate object.

      I have a RED HOT NEWS FLASH for you. Here in NYS, there are already ARMED people carrying in Nuke facilities.

      Oh, by the way, did you ever find out what the firing sequence of a cartridge is?

      • True…..the word “SHALL” has a very specific meaning….he needs to go look up the definition and it use in the laws we have and the rights we have…..Shall is not the same as “should. could, or would….it is definitive….

  14. WOW! A federal judge with common sense! Highly unusual! We need more! Re-elect trump to appoint more!

    • “WOW! A federal judge with common sense! Highly unusual!”

      9th Cir is up next; District Judge will be overturned. It is possible the 9th will find a way to delay review, so that SCOTUS cannot overturn 9th, just prior to national elections. A loss at the SC would be a well-publicized loss for Biden.

  15. I saw a response to a question on Quora the other day (and there are endless ignorant, stupid questions on that platform) that really does a knockout quality job of dumbing this down for even the thickest of heads.
    Let’s say you are sitting home on your couch and you feel cold. So you get a blanket to keep you warm. A few minutes go by and you’re still cold, so you get another blanket to make you even warmer. You can do this a few times before diminishing returns make it pointless as you can only trap so much heat under the blankets. This is what has become of gun laws. We are layering level after level after level of gun laws on top of existing laws already in place. The new laws therefore are subject to the same diminishing returns and ultimately don’t do anything other than allow a politician to parade around saying look at me and my work!
    We don’t need more gun laws. What we need is less freaks on the street. The people of this country are no longer the proud Americans of a generation past. They have become a group of idiots and freaks who think they can do anything they wish while the rest must conform to their desired rules. That thing that did the TN shooting is a prime example. Those are the types we used to secure in asylums. Now they are on the street and causing this havoc. And it won’t stop until we lock them back up or forcefully change behavior. As much as I was against mandatory military service in my youth, I think all Americans should serve two years minimum going forward. And for those who’d attempt to be thrown out to avoid service, 2 years in lockup will suffice.

  17. “The irony here is that the great weight of empirical evidence suggests that the proliferation of guns in public places makes them less safe, not more. ”
    That a complete lie. A delusional statement.

    • It’s not that they don’t know anything, it’s just that they know so much that just isn’t so!

      …also, Slate is a rag that publicly abandoned journalistic integrity to try to get the political results they wanted…sooo…

  18. Holy cow! Someone with a gun could drive past an actual bank with real money in it or past a nuclear weapon storage where they might steal the weapons needed to drop on gun owners. How is President Swalwell going to follow orders from the CCP without them?

    Do I actually need a /sarc on this one?

  19. It seems our Leftist hoplophobes have designated most public places as “sensitive”. “Sensitive”? Every place could be “sensitive”. My home is “sensitive”, my church is sensitive, etc. What these hoplophobes are doing is creating target rich environments for those who wish to do people harm.

    Whether our Leftist hoplophobes know it or not is that they are putting every single person in or around one of their “sensitive” places at risk.

  20. Sorry Guys, I need unsubscribe from this feed. The ads with worms and other weird shit are just making me sick. Find another way to support your site instead of this click bait crap.

  21. The author writes: “Despite its brevity, the decision’s black-and-white character bleeds through to its dystopian, American carnage–like view of contemporary society, which conjures images of bad guys lurking on every corner. The opinion begins darkly: ‘We live in dangerous times.’”

    Where on earth would we law-abiding concealed carriers get ideas like that? Isn’t that what’s reported incessantly on the left-wing controlled news outlets? And in left-wing rags like Slate?

  22. ,Newsom wants more gun violence to make his point about guns. He does not care who he sacrificed in the process. Lawful CCW holders in CA will not be allowed to help out should they have to engage. Our state Democrats support criminals more than citizens

Comments are closed.