California Judge: Failing to Use Racist Gun Laws of the Past to Justify Gun Control Now Would Perpetuate Inequality

By
Jennifer Sensiba
-
64

California courts are known for performing all sorts of legal contortions in order to perpetuate the state’s complex and extensive regulation of guns and how they can be owned and carried. In a recent example a “liberal” federal judge decided that past racism should be legitimized so that today’s minorities can be protected by laws that were rooted in…racism.

The opinion came in the case of Baird v. Bonta, which challenges California’s open carry licensing laws. Last week’s opinion by Chief District Judge Kimberley Mueller denies the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgement in the case which would have invalidated the law.

Did you catch that? The judge ruled that failing to use racist gun laws of the past to support limits on gun rights today (that some black Americans support) might “perpetuate inequality.” If that makes your head spin a bit, I’ll try to explain. Your head will probably still spin, but things will be a little less blurry as they go by.

First off, this is a post-Bruen case. In NYSRPA v Bruen, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms shouldn’t be subject to “interest balancing,” where governments basically swear that they really, really need to control who can own and carry guns so the courts let them violate the Constitution. Instead, governments must now carry the full burden of proving that their laws regulating keeping and bearing arms are constitutional.

A California District Court had earlier ruled against the plaintiffs in this case using interest balancing. In September, the Ninth Circuit reversed that ruling and told the District Court to reconsider the case under Bruen’s text, history and tradition tests.

There’s only one good way for them to do that under Bruen: find similar gun laws from the time of the Constitution’s ratification and maybe for a few decades after, which would prove that the people who ratified the Second Amendment considered those laws to be in keeping with the Amendment’s original meaning. If you’re a gun control proponent, that’s terrible news because there was almost no gun control at that time.

What gun control there was from the late eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries is mostly invalidated by the Fourteenth Amendment. Nearly all of the anti-gun laws of the period were those that prohibited slaves and people of certain races from possessing firearms, which were obviously based on racism. Subsequent gun laws based on this racism after the Civil War applied to everyone in theor, but were mostly only enforced against racial minorities in practice (Jim Crow).

So what the judge is trying to do here is rehabilitate those laws and use them as limits on Second Amendment rights today. This isn’t only a racist in and of itself, but because we live in a world with a Fourteenth Amendment, those laws would all be unconstitutional today, and thus aren’t really usable as historic examples or analogues.

This is where the judge’s insane argument comes in. Because many people in those racial minorities today favor gun control and voting for the judge’s party, he thinks he gets a pass. It’s okay to be racist if it means advancing the larger policy agenda and supposedly protecting minorities today.

The Firearms Policy Coalition is rightfully rubbing Judge Mueller’s nose in this. Racism and the dangers minorities face today doesn’t mean that we should give any credibility to racist laws of the past. The judge knows that a war was fought with that being an important issue, and that subsequent constitutional amendments ended the practice of slavery, unequal treatment under the law, etc.

She also knows that at the end of Reconstruction, a resurgence of abusive laws and unequal treatment of minorities was constructed and perpetuated over time, culminating in the Civil Rights Act.

What she may not be aware of is that ending segregation and other official racism in the United States didn’t happen strictly through peaceful protest and non-violence. Groups like the Deacons for Defense and Justice and the Black Panthers engaged in armed resistance against violent discrimination, providing the important “or else” behind Martin Luther King, Jr’s more peaceful efforts.

Sadly, this very resistance resulted in many of today’s gun control laws in California (and yes, Ronald Reagan signed those into law, but he wasn’t the infallible deity some think he was).

Judge Mueller’s cheap shot in Baird won’t survive in the higher courts. It’s ultimately just another delay tactic. But it should be called out and criticized for what it is: an attempt to use past racism for current political advantage.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

64 COMMENTS

  1. “liberal” federal judge decided that past racism should be legitimized so that today’s minorities can be protected by laws that were rooted in…racism.

    Wait, WHAT? That makes as much sense as FIGHTING for peace or intercourse for virginity…

    • RE “Sadly, this very resistance resulted in many of today’s gun control laws in California (and yes, Ronald Reagan signed those into law, but he wasn’t the infallible deity some think he was).”

      A moment in time with Reagan did not or does not in any way transfer which political party owns Gun Control lock, stock and barrel. Gov. Reagan fell into the sounds-good Gun Control trap as have many including gullible Black Americans. Fortunately a POTUS R. Reagan after surviving a gunshot did not jump out of his hospital bed to ban everyone’s guns like CA’s democRat gov. g. newsom would do if he heard a distant gun shot. And it was democRat bill clintoon who signed the brady bill into law, etc. Overwhelming evidense shows today’s democRat Party carries on what is a deranged centuries old democRat Party family tradition aka Gun Control.

      • I’m a Reagan fan as much as the next conservative, but he made his fair share of epic screw ups. He is also responsible for the closure of mental asylums in this country. Of course, there as well he fell into the CA trap of feel good legislation, which was a plan of two parts. Part one eliminated mental asylums, part two built community centers to deal with the loonies now to be let out into the world. Part two never materialized after part one was enacted. And that’s why we have some many idiots on the streets in our country today instead of locked up in padded rooms. Reagan was still one of the best presidents we ever had, but he was not infallible. Even the greats can be hoodwinked into doing something stupid.

    • Democrats lead the Confederate States of America, Democrats founded the Klu Klux Klan, Democrats enacted Jim Crowe laws to prevent freed slaves from voting and bearing arms, Democrats segregated public schools, restaurants, restrooms and water fountains, Democrats fought against the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. Democrats are Evil, Racists and Anti-American.

    • So…here in California…

      Open carry is prohibited. Former Gov Jerry Brown killed it.

      As of tomorrow, SB2 (signed into law and trumpeted by current Gov Newsom) will prohibit CCW in most public places. Which means in those public places, for which our tax dollars are pulled out of our paychecks by the State, we have no legal option to exercise our RKBA protected by the 2A.

      So Newsom and his Democrats are, effectively, removing the citizens’ ability to exercise a right our own State Constitution declares it supports in Article 3, Section 1 (in which it declares in a single sentence that CA recognized the USC as the supreme law of the land).

      There are multiple legal reasons why this SB2 will be knocked down, but Bonta appealed to the Ninth for a specific reason…Newsom will be running for President in 2024, and the Ninth is notorious for taking a full year to hear/decide cases. It’s all part of the plan, folks…

  2. A left wing liberal white privileged woman using racism to justify racism to restrict/remove constitutional rights for political advantage isn’t anything new. All of the anti-gun groups and left wing politician ‘progressive’ anti-gun do it.

    • Pretty sure if ever need to appear as a defendant in court you won’t want a chic judge. If not PMS/Menopause/lack of logical thinking ability the Boss B personality will not work out in your favor. An typically will be a prog/demtard.

    • UM…excuse me .40 cal, but the woman who writes this column, Ms. Sensiba, is a left wing liberal supporting anti gun, anti 2A supporter of politicians who “justify racism to restrict/remove constitutional rights for political advantage”. Yet she gets to write for TTAG?

  5. You really, really need someone with an education to proofread for you. This blog is full of spelling errors, run on sentances, and even subject verb agreement issues. Good grief.

      • Not like spell check and edit programs have not been in use for +20 years.
        At this point there is no excuse to not use one.

      • If you want to be taken seriously and publish your work to the public, then you should take the time to make it look like a competent person wrote it.

        These errors reflect a lack of elementary skills with written language.

        Why should I read anything someone wrote if they can’t be expected to read it to themselves after typing?

        • “Why should I read anything someone wrote if they can’t be expected to read it to themselves after typing?”

          I agree completely. Protect yourself from word violence. Seek an improved vantage point. For your own guud.

    • “Really, really” = excessive. One “really” is sufficient
      “run on” needs to be hyphenated
      “sentances” is misspelled
      “subject verb” needs to be hyphenated

      Your license as Grammar Cop has been revoked.

      • The word you are looking for is redundant.
        Having a comma in between the the adverbs used for emphasis is proper.

        I did make a spelling error and missed two hyphens; my mistake.

        However, I am not a contributing writer to TTAG and I don’t pretend to make a living as a professional writer.

        • “between the the adverbs” You really, really should proof read read your comments if if you plan on picking the article apart.

        • Excessive and redundant often mean the same thing, but the reason I chose “excessive” over “redundant” is because “really, really” is out of proportion and lazy. I also think “excessive” has a little more punch to it. But that’s just me. I have made my living as a writer for a few decades, and if one can’t get one’s point across economically<—- see this?, clearly and/or artistically (which means all bets are off), then find better words.

          I understand the flexibility of the language, and I follow English guidelines over strict rules. Yes, it would be nice for TTAG to be error free, although I don't come here for Strunk and White lessons, and I spot problems in every media outlet I read, even those everyone would think should know better. I'm not an editor any more, but I used to get a paycheck to correct these issues. I also know that comment sections are places where people just type shit and it doesn't matter. But seriously: it is the height of ridiculousness to bash someone over grammar when you can't even type 30 words without making four errors.

          Sorry to sound like an ass, I'm really not. Just had a tall pour of delicious rye whiskey, and if you were here I'd offer you one and say – look, in the grand scheme of things, this really, really doesn't matter.

          Happy New Year

        • Den you bees bettah off doin gramma trollin where dare ain’t no peoples trying to discuts current events. Cuz ya ain’t got no right to talk shit to distract us. cuz dem who bees witout syntax sins shouldn’t throw stones. Like my old mammie who was so obeets that when the school bus dropping me off at the stop hit herl, she say “who throwed da stone?!” Happy New Beer!

    • run on sentances,?

      You could probably use a spell checker yourself… If you want to be a “GrammarNazi” you should at least proofread your own shit before you take on someone else’s…

      • One spelling mistake does not negate the fact that someone who wants to be taken seriously as a writer publishes something that wouldn’t fly in 3rd Grade English class.

        • It does kind of shit on YOUR veracity as a grammar critic though… Not like she’s writing a thesis for a Doctorate or something, hell half the people on here probably can’t READ past a third-grade level (“dacian would say”)… Who cares?

      • Stuck,

        You’re a little late; he already did (and he got the “P” for pretentious upgrade to that award, too). The really amusing part is that his (fairly short) post is replete with both grammar and spelling errors, AND poor sentence construction. I seem to vaguely recall some saying about glass houses and throwing stones.

  6. Using her legal logic Chief District Judge Kimberley Mueller should have no problem with literacy tests for voting, like the Jim Crow democrat’s for firearms possession. Literacy laws and poll taxes served their historical “inequality” purposes.

  7. Isn’t this related to that whole condescending attitude that “people of color aren’t smart enough to get a voter ID” that justifies laxity in blue states? Dark colored people need Democrats to stick up for them, and to tell them what to do, not to mention, how to vote. And, since they really aren’t smart enough to take care of themselves, this judge is going to bend the law so she can watch out for their interests.

  9. Note: Of course T Tag will trash this post as they no longer permit freedom of speech (as most of the Far Right do) and are only interested in pushing their pro-gun propaganda even when they know that they are historically wrong. They rely on the fact that most of their readers will not do any historical checks on their statements because they are telling them what they want to hear.

    quote—————There’s only one good way for them to do that under Bruen: find similar gun laws from the time of the Constitution’s ratification and maybe for a few decades after, which would prove that the people who ratified the Second Amendment considered those laws to be in keeping with the Amendment’s original meaning. If you’re a gun control proponent, that’s terrible news because there was almost no gun control at that time.——-quote

    The Author of this statement did not do her homework because MSNBC did a study on pre and post Revolutionary gun laws and found many cities had gun ban laws far more stringent than what we find today in some Far Right States and Cities.

    As a matter of fact the famous shootout at the OK Corral was over Tombstone’s anti-gun law banning the carrying of guns in the city limits.

    There were also anti-gun laws in Colonial America that banned keeping a loaded guns in the home because so many children were being killed by loaded guns left laying around the house. Does all this sound familiar?????

    Ditto for anti-carry laws both open carry and concealed carry in both pre and post Colonial America in many big cities.

    The above are just a few of the anti-gun laws that were on the books in early America and of course totally ignored by a demented Far Right Court appointed by Herr Drumpf which shows that the Bruen decision was a total farce.

    • “Note: Of course T Tag will trash this post as they no longer permit freedom of speech (as most of the Far Right do) and are only interested in pushing their pro-gun propaganda even when they know that they are historically wrong.”

      Odd you would make such a statement since you post here almost daily with no resistance.
      And that is historically correct.

      Oh! “historically” of which you speak is not your strong suit for Debbie W and others have been clearly illustrating the historical roots of gun control, yet you still have not gotten the message.

    • dacian the demented dipsh*t,

      So, just to be clear, since it is your position that clearly and objectively (and INTENTIONALLY) racist laws in the slavery era (and during Reconstruction) justify continuing those laws, today? Does that apply to literacy tests for voting? How about ‘whites only’ drinking fountains? Hell, maybe you’d be all in for reinstituting slavery.

      You are too stupid to insult.

    • Most all of thoes laws were unconstitutional but they didn’t get drug into court and declared as such. The average person of that time didn’t know how to go about that. Most average citizens could never afford it either. Maybe they should have tried a go fund me?

    • As a matter of fact the famous shootout at the OK Corral was over Tombstone’s anti-gun law banning the carrying of guns in the city limits.

      You can call that the OFFICIAL story, but it was actually over a personal conflict between Virgil and the Clantons and Mclaurys… Earps didn’t want their guns they wanted them gone… Yeah, MSDNC is my go-to for unbiased reporting too… Just because a law was on the books didn’t mean it was “constitutional” those people didn’t even know what the Constitution was…

    • You know what else we could do historically, dacian the demented not-zee?

      We could mail order all firearms available and even cannon, no questions asked. No paperwork, no background checks. I welcome a return to historical gun control.

    • Speaking of historically wrong: virtually all gun laws written prior to the Civil War were racist in nature. Even if or when the language of the gun law was racially neutral, the law was enforced selectively against non-white, non-Protestant, and non-wealthy people who were disapproved of by WASPS. It takes a special kind of retard to use blatantly racist laws to justify continuing to oppress people you don’t like. In your case, the unliked people are anyone who demands their constitutional rights.

      I really don’t care a whole lot whether some young black gangbanger can get a gun or not. I DEMAND that the young parents and businessmen in that gangbanger’s neighborhood have access to guns, so that they can defend themselves from that banger. The banger WILL learn to respect his fellow citizens – or he will be put in the ground where his disrespect no longer matters.

      You want the law of the jungle? Fine, give everybody the fangs and the claws to make them equal. You know that you stopped beating me, and Mama, and your girlfriend when we all got guns, and you resent it Dacey-boo-boo.

    • @dacian

      “because MSNBC did a study on pre and post Revolutionary gun laws and found many cities had gun ban laws far more stringent than what we find today in some Far Right States and Cities”

      That’s a lie and slanted dishonesty and disingenuous, as is the rest of what you wrote.

  10. The Mulford Act was co-written by a Jewish lawmaker. And member of the ACLU board of directors.
    And the white h0m0sexu@ls who boast about their political power in california, publicly endorsed racist gun control.

    And they have written and passed even more gun control laws.

    Keep talking about a dead white governor. And keep supporting racist white h0m0sexu@l politicians. This is the problem with racist white liberal gun owners. They keep thinking that their past voter support, for these racist white h0m0sexu@l lawmakers can be erased.

    No it can’t be erased. They’re liberal gun owners who vote for white racist liberals. The former Confederate States of America have all past permitless carry. For black people and everyone else.

    California is now a slave state. So many people have moved away that the state has lost a member of congress. But California did make it legal to have sex in front of elementary school children.

    So at least you do have that “freedom” there.

      • btw
        There have already been several stories on TTAG in the past. Covering the open carry protests of law abiding black gun owners. Several of those open carry protests were held in former slave states.

        But Black gun owners still can’t open carry in the g@y and pot head controlled state of California.

    • “So many people have moved away that the state has lost a member of congress.”

      And that’s not even taking into consideration all the non-citizens, both legal and illegal, that get counted in the US census to help make up for the tax payers fleeing California.

  11. GRAB THE PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES..
    HEAT UP THE TAR..
    FILL UP THE CARPENTER BAGS AT THE LOCAL CHICKEN HOUSES..
    IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME COMING FOLKS..

  12. It has already been clearly established NO LAWS after the founding fathers era are to be considered. So racist or not, we are discussing and arguing the wrong point.

    These idiot leftists need to be put back in the box SCOTUS established for them. The era of the founding fathers. Stop enabling them to drag us into discussions about racist laws which have ZERO validity to SCOTUS in this discussion. They are quite easily dragging people into the mud to fight about things that are irrelevant.

    Think I’m wrong? Go look up Heller and see how many times “Founding” was used by the authors of that decision.

  13. Judge Kimberly has a wedding ring on and a “Pearl Necklace”.
    I bet that’s not a Mom Demanding Action.
    I came up with a novel idea, these states not doing what the Constitution of The United States says dont get no more federal help.
    No highway,Dissaster relief, food programs, save the whales or nothing.

      • But we do need to keep sending them bus loads of illegals.

        NIMBY, it’s a wonderful thing…

        • Yup. Love listening to the outraged squeals of rage from the NY Governor and assorted NY / IL Mayors. Sux when it’s YOUR backyard…doesn’t it, you schmucks.

        • Please do it has done wonders to convince many that not only do we need to stop taking in so many but we need to deport and build a wall

    • possum,

      Great idea, but . . . when the federal gummint is the BIGGEST abuser of the Constitution, forget ‘federal aid to the states’, what about let’s all tell the federal gummint to take a flying fornication at a rolling breakfast pastry when tax time comes around, eh??

      • I believe that would be, “Execute an aerial coital attempt at a circumrotary toroidal pastry.”

  15. Of course, I get all of my firearm advice from pathetic, emotional female judges. Like the ignorant 86 year old Carter appointee granny who said an AR isn’t good for self defense, or the pearl clutcher who said magazines are not part of a firearm because muzzle loaders. Emotion does not belong in court, and if they can’t think logically they need to be removed because they won’t go voluntarily.

    So Nanny, which of your rights would you like to negotiate away? I’m hoping its your first amendment…

  16. Simply because you wear a black robe, sit in a leather Queen Anne chair and put cheap Christmas tree garland around your neck definitely does not protect you from being a total MORON!

  17. Judge Mueller acknowledged that the Open Carry of handguns was a right recognized by Americans in 1791 but only because handguns were mostly single-shot pistols and in her view, mostly carry unloaded.

    She said in her decision that when handguns became capable of firing more than one round every 15 seconds, they became murder weapons. Therefore California can require them to be carried concealed.

    The Firearms Policy Coalition isn’t the best source for Open Carry. The head of the FPC is Brandon Combs, the former ED for the now-renamed CalGuns Foundation. In addition to being the most vocal opponent of Open Carry, his organization was a plaintiff in the Richards v. Prieto concealed carry lawsuit (combined with the NRA’s Peruta v. San Diego concealed carry lawsuit) it which his lawyers argued that bans on Open Carry do not violate the Constitution.

    • Hi, Charles.

      Good to see you here, again. How’s your case evolving? California still working to keep your case from being reviewed?

      • My cert petition before judgment will be denied next Monday. The district court will then lift the stay of my district court proceedings and “…will set new case management deadlines and solicit input from the parties about whether additional time is needed to complete discovery before summary judgment motion(s) can be filed.”

        Given that the State of California did not need any additional time to file its motion for summary judgment in Baird v. Bonta (filed on August 18, 2023) and despite the district court in my case not having jurisdiction to reopen discovery, the judge will no doubt reopen discovery in my case and push the deadline for summary judgment motions until September. That would push the unnecessary trial in my case to the first quarter of 2025.

        • “That would push the unnecessary trial in my case to the first quarter of 2025.”

          Seems the courts in the Caliphate are fully prejudiced against “per se” legal representation.

  18. “So what the judge is trying to do here is rehabilitate those laws and use them as limits on Second Amendment rights today. This isn’t only a racist in and of itself, but because we live in a world with a Fourteenth Amendment, those laws would all be unconstitutional today, and thus aren’t really usable as historic examples or analogues.”

    The question of historical analogue isn’t about whether something was racist or WOULD be unconstitutional, today. It’s about originalism- namely, what the founding fathers intended. And IF they were fine with guns being restricted in certain ways back then, that’s a problem for expansive pro-2nd arguments, now. Just because laws were racist or used in a racist manner back then doesn’t nullify that- if it did, it would eliminate a great many laws, as almost none were applied equally among races.

    A better argument than “that’s racist and doesn’t count” is that some footnote regulation in a podunk district from 1899 does not necessarily represent the founding principles of the Constitution. This is a problem with taking the ‘historical analogue’ element too singularly, and I think could be seen as a failing of the bruen opinion. Perhaps it would have been better for them to start by insisting that courts treat infringements of the 2nd Amendment with the same scrutiny that they are supposed to use for the 1st and 4th (which, sure, may not be enough but it’s a start)

  19. they don’t give a s*** if blacks have guns they don’t follow the law anyways. they do however want to take guns away from white people because they’re very good at overthrowing governments.

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