Two California counties violated the Constitution's right to keep and bear arms when they shut down gun and ammunition stores in 2020 as nonessential businesses during the coronavirus pandemic, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. Officials in Los Angeles and Ventura counties had separately won lower court decisions saying gun stores were not exempt from broader shutdown orders aimed at limiting the spread of the coronavirus early in the pandemic. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected both lower court rulings. The Second Amendment “means nothing if the government can prohibit all persons from acquiring any firearm or ammunition,” Judge Lawrence VanDyke wrote. "But that’s what happened in this case." Because buyers can obtain guns only by personally going to gun stores in California, Ventura County’s 48-day closure of gun shops, ammunition shops and firing ranges “wholly prevented law-abiding citizens in the County from realizing their right to keep and bear arms,” he wrote. This, he noted, while bike shops were among those allowed to remain open as essential businesses. The panel adopted the same reasoning in the Los Angeles County case, though the closure there was for 11 days. The decision holds that governments "cannot use a crisis to trample on the Constitutional rights of citizens,” said Michael Jean, director of the National Rifle Association's Office of Litigation Counsel that sued in the Los Angeles County case. It also sued Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties over their restrictions in Northern California, but the last three were dismissed from the lawsuit when they repealed their orders. Similar restrictions were imposed in 10 other states, according to the Firearms Policy Coalition, another gun owners' rights groups that sued: Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina and Virginia. Three gun-owner rights groups and several individuals and businesses had sought to overturn the lower court rulings in California. Ventura County “believes the case was correctly decided at the District Court level and is disappointed with the three-judge panel’s decision,” county spokeswoman Ashley Bautista said in an email. Officials are reviewing the decision and “evaluating our options and next steps.” Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, named plaintiffs in the case, did not immediately comment. Losing parties can generally ask the full 9th Circuit to review the ruling by the three judges, or petition the U.S. Supreme Court. The nation's high court has been deemed more sympathetic to gun owners in recent years. Firearms Policy Coalition vice president of programs Adam Kraut said in a statement that the cases resulted “when authoritarian governments used COVID as an excuse to attack Second Amendment rights.” The 9th Circuit opinions "confirm our claims that the COVID closures of gun stores and firing ranges violated the Second Amendment rights of Californians,” he said.
Disregarding any opinions on policy, it does make sense. If people have a constitutional right, for instance to not be murdered, it makes sense that the declaration of a global pandemic would not remove that constitutional right. So long as they enter the gun shop with a mask on. Speaking of.. I find it funny all this discussion about masks and vaccines. In Brazil, people were trying to sneak past lines to get vaccinated as if it were the ultimate benefit to be protected and be able to wander about. At the same time, in other countries, people were fighting to not be vaccinated. Whatever your position on the subject, you have to enjoy the difference in opinions as a form of entertainment!
I think in much of my country (I and we are Canadian we are not Yankees!) people do is they’re told. We are told to shut up and get in line with everyone else and to do as you’re told! We are told or we tell ourselves that we are an orderly people. I think it is partly or mostly due to the ever-present loudmouth hooray-Yankee media and it’s evil repetitive nation and it’s loud speakers and many Canadians watch the television and read that media and seem to forget that Canada is not the United States and every now and then we have to be taught to get in line to shut your mouth to do as you’re told. Yankees highly value their individualism and they brag about it and lecture the rest of the world about their rights and freedoms. As if they have little idea that the rest of the world came to compromises way before the Yankees were even an idea. Canada has made lots of mistakes and we get things wrong but we are not a gigantic loudmouth with big muscles like the United States is… And because we have to live right next-door to a rabid elephant we always have it in our minds that we best be careful. All the millions of handguns that are in Canada are exclusively the property of people who do not have their proper papers and did not stand in line they just went around that line and bought illegal Yankee handguns. I hate to say it but much of the problems that we have with civil society in this country are directly a result of us not having a 10 m high steel wall between our nations. I don’t think that that would help anyway because the Yankees were just find another way to smuggle their evil tools. I do not think the Yankees are the only evil society on this planet I believe there are a few significant ones that are obvious another many or even hundreds that are not obvious that can still cause terrible problems. I have seen handguns that aren’t holsters and those are issued to mostly strong young men but some women get them to and those people are called RCMP. But we also have gangster want to bees. Young people who think they will live forever, steal a handgun or buy one if they can afford it and they go on out as individuals and cause trouble…. I don’t mind a cop so much but I am scared have to death of a 18-year-old with mental health problems and a handgun. Where do those handguns come from come on let’s be serious my land those handguns come from Merika. Regular people in Mexico call those things gringo guns. I like hunting rifles I have used those things hundreds of times since I was a boy. During all my years on this planet I have never seen a handgun outside of a holster being held in the hands of any crazy teenager or really anybody. I got to use a huge pistol once when I was in my 20s it was awesome and I handed it back and I have not touched one since. I know that those things are here that we have them that they’re here for a reason and that Canadians don’t use them nearly as often as Yankees do.
But our mostly young men who think they can live forever make mistakes before they are 25 years old and then cause destruction they are not numbered in the millions they are usually just individuals. There are more hand portable firearms in Canada then there are people. We are all aware of that and our society is vigilant and we do incarcerate people that have that stuff when they have no business having it… I do not know anyone that has a pistol!!!! I know dozens or hundreds of people that have a rifle!!! I used to have a goddamn big powerful Soviet era so-called sniper rifle… After I got sick how about 13 years ago when I was tidying up my affairs I pawned that thing. I saw no need to keep it I don’t plan on going out in the bush hunting for a moose or a deer anymore I am getting too old and clumsy and unsure of myself.
