UGH: Supreme Court REFUSES to hear major gun rights case

This isn’t good news. The Supreme Court has refused to hear a case where a California county refuses to grant concealed carry licenses to normal citizens:

BLOOMBERG – The U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider loosening restrictions on carrying firearms in public, rejecting an appeal by California gun-rights advocates and continuing to steer clear of one of the nation’s most polarizing issues.

The justices left intact a San Diego County policy that requires people to show a special need in order to get a license to carry a concealed handgun outside the home. A divided federal appeals court had upheld the policy.

The high court has turned away gun-rights appeals repeatedly since its last Second Amendment case in 2010, declining to carve out new constitutional protections for firearm owners outside the home.

Five San Diego County residents and a gun-rights group argued in their appeal that “the Constitution guarantees ordinary, law-abiding citizens some means of bearing firearms outside the home for self-defense, whether it be open or concealed carrying.”

California is one of about 8 states that bar most people from carrying weapons in public. California makes an exception for residents who can show “good cause” to carry a concealed handgun, while leaving it to local authorities to decide what meets that standard.

San Diego County’s sheriff said “good cause” must be more than a desire to carry a weapon for general self-defense purposes. The county requires a person to show a “set of circumstances that distinguishes the applicant from other members of the general public and causes him or her to be placed in harm’s way.”

The 7-4 appeals court decision said the San Diego residents’ lawsuit focused solely on the right to carry a concealed weapon, not broader issues about Second Amendment rights outside the home.

The move by the Supreme Court not to take up the case wasn’t without dissent:

Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch said the high court should have heard the case.

“For those of us who work in marbled halls, guarded constantly by a vigilant and dedicated police force, the guarantees of the Second Amendment might seem antiquated and superfluous,” Thomas wrote for the pair. “But the framers made a clear choice: They reserved the right to bear arms for self-defense.”

Perhaps this will change in the future, but for now it looks like California gun owners are stuck with this unconstitutional policy.