“If Peruta is overturned, and the odds are two to one, then it is up to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court has got to get involved.” said NRA lawyer Chuck Michel in an NRA News video published on May 21st.
“Peruta” refers to the case in which a split three judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided that San Diego Sheriff Gore must accept self-defense as “good cause” for being issued a concealed carry permit. The decision in that case has not gone into effect and likely never will if, as expected, the case is reheard before an en banc panel of judges.
Of course there is no reason why the US Supreme Court should get involved when the Peruta decision is overturned by an en banc panel of judges later this year or next. There have been three Supreme Court decisions which said that concealed carry falls outside the scope of the Second Amendment, two of those decisions were published relatively recently in 2008 and 2010.
Why should the Supreme Court take a case just to repeat what it has been saying for over 100 years? For that matter, state courts as well have been saying that there is no right to carry a concealed weapon for nearly 200 years, except for one case from 1822 Kentucky which was later overturned. Not just overturned, Kentucky amended its state Constitution in 1850 to say that concealed carry can be banned.
In just this past year the US Supreme Court has turned down four appeals from the two largest so called gun-rights groups (NRA and Second Amendment Foundation) which sought to compel states to issue permits for the carrying of concealed handguns in public. This number does not include the countless petitions brought by prisoners seeking to overturn their convictions for carrying concealed weapons the High Court turned down since 2008.
Like it or not, the US Supreme Court has decided that the carrying of concealed weapons falls outside the scope of the Second Amendment and that the carrying of firearms openly is the right guaranteed by the Constitution.
Meanwhile, the only pure Open Carry civil rights lawsuit in the nation, Nichols v. Brown, filed a notice of appeal six days later on May 27th.
Once the Peruta concealed carry decision is overturned, Nichols v. Brown becomes our last hope for restoring our right to carry loaded firearms in public for the purpose of self-defense.
