2 New Court Decisions Are Quietly Eliminating Californians’ Second Amendment Rights

Golden State gun owners may soon be an endangered species, and no one is talking about why.

By Declan McCullagh

Reason.com
May 10, 2018



Two new federal court decisions highlight a harsh new reality: California has effectively repealed the Second Amendment inside its borders. In the first case, decided yesterday, a district judge ruled against the National Rifle Association's state affiliate in a challenge to onerous new California rules targeting popular semi-automatic rifles. That 2016 law, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown (D), is called the Assault Weapons Control Act.

The second unsuccessful Second Amendment case, also brought by the NRA's state affiliate, sought to protect Californians' rights to carry firearms for self-defense. A federal judge in Los Angeles tossed it on Monday, saying the California legislature "reasonably saw a link between restrictions" on carrying firearms and public safety.

In theory, after the Supreme Court's Heller decision in 2008, the Second Amendment was supposed to mean something—it was supposed to protect a core fundamental right as important as the freedom to speak or to worship. Just as the First Amendment was the uniform law of the land across the nation, the theory went, the Second Amendment would be as well.