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Court rules California’s ban on open carry of firearms is unconstitutional

January 3, 2026

By KAREN VELIE

A federal appeals court on Friday ruled that California’s ban on the open carry of firearms in most public places is unconstitutional.

A panel of judges with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a gun owner in ruling that the state’s gun licensing laws that prohibit authorities from issuing permits to openly carry guns in counties with more than 200,000 people are unconstitutional. Those counties make up 95% of the state.

“It was clearly protected at the time of the Founding and at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment,” the judges wrote in their ruling. “There is no record of any law restricting open carry at the Founding, let alone a distinctly similar historical regulation.”

One of the three-judge panel, Judge N. Randy Smith, agreed the restrictions based on population was unconstitutional while partially dissented with the majority opinion.

“My colleagues got this case half right,” Smith wrote. “The majority opinion correctly holds that California’s open carry licensing scheme is facially constitutional under Bruen. However, my colleagues misread Bruen to prohibit California’s other restrictions on open carry.”

 


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Having left California, reluctantly, in 1992, for military service, it is nice to see that some of this nonsense is being rectified…


Ironically, getting out probably saved my life after having learned of so many schoolmates and friends who ended losing their lives to drugs and similar.


When your only answer is to ban everything, doesn’t seem like a group has any answers at all, but do appear ruled by fear. Every time I turned my back, it seemed some ‘idealist’ was trying to turn me into a criminal, and even in the State of New Mexico, a very small minority was trying to do the same thing.


Ironically, the folks who are engaged in this activity never seemed to have a history of overcoming serious adversity or similar. After being turned into an ‘economic refugee’ from my own country, I remember being terrified, but unlike those folks, I did not have the option of doing nothing.


2

I don’t know anyone excited about this. It is relevant only because it shows that the 2A stalwarts are continuing to fight and the landscape is slowly moving toward less restriction under the current administration. But nobody serious actually open-carries unless it is (1) part of their job, or (2) they are in remote areas and using it for protection from predators. Open carrying is a good way of getting your firearm stolen from you, and also announces to any bad actors, “Hey, I have a gun to fight back with so be sure you shoot and kill me first” and is mainly engaged in by Navy Seal cosplayers and boomers who think they’re Clint Eastwood.


-14

You should get out more, to open carry states. All kinds of folks open carry there – including me. Folks are polite n well behaved, n no one’s tried to swipe my piece yet. N nobody’s cos-playing either – it’s the real deal. If you dowanna open carry, just don’t. The ones that do certainly ain’t hurting you, and just might save yer butt someday…


9

You think our Local Cult of Good Ol boys Police and Sherriff will allow open carry constitutionally to anyone applying? They dont, and wont, and pick and choose who gets to have the “luxury” of open cary and can be as bias and prejudice as they want as Conservatives; who hinder our rights.


-28

Seriously? Conservatives hinder our 2A rights. Okay. It was literally a Dem ban on open carry.


8

Keep a derringer in your purse. No one needs to know.


0

If you need a permit to exercise a legal right established in the Bill Of Rights, it’s unconstitutional.


Conservatives hinder you rights? Which Conservative banned AR15’s? Which one banned standard capacity magazines? Which one banned any means of firearms carry without an explicit and paid for permission slip from the state? Among the nearly 25,000 unconstitutional gun laws across the USA, which one was authored by, and passed by, Conservatives?


10

So what does this mean, can we open carry now in CA?


24

It’s less than half a loaf. They ruled it’s unconstitutional for the state to bar authorities (Sheriffs, Police Chiefs) from issuing open carry “permits” in high population counties. As if most of them would consider doing so anyway. And of course the state will appeal the ruling.


Even if 2A advocates win all appeals, more lawsuits must follow to dismantle what’s guaranteed to be a monstrously complex “permitting process”.


Tiny-steps progress; doubt I’ll live to see free open carry ever allowed in CA. Too bad that…


25

No, you still need a permit. This just says they can no longer refuse to issue permits.


10