California concealed carry law is clearly unconstitutional. Even to this no-guns guy | Opinion

California’s political supermajority, a group that I am generally in agreement with, lost me on this one.

About guns of all things.

Guns!

Before continuing with my main point, allow me to outline my personal history and general thoughts on firearms: I don’t own any guns, nor have seriously considered purchasing one. I don’t hunt. I don’t shoot at paper targets, clay pigeons or glass bottles. I don’t find anything especially cool or thrilling about guns. And my personal safety has never felt threatened to the point where I felt I needed a gun.

(Thirty years ago I grabbed my food bag from a bear while backpacking in Yosemite’s Matterhorn Canyon, but that’s another tale.)

Opinion

I’m also in favor of stricter gun laws. I think assault rifles with high-capacity magazines should be banned and possession of untraceable firearms prohibited. I support lengthening the waiting period to purchase guns, tightening background checks and cracking down on illicit gun shows.

Clearly, this is not the perspective of a gun enthusiast or rights advocate. Those who offer the same lame excuses or condolences every time this country endures another mass shooting absolutely disgust me.

I’m also not a constitutional scholar. My knowledge of the document that outlines our “more perfect union” and all the legal interpretations that have followed doesn’t exceed 12th grade civics.

Still, it’s logical to think that had our founding fathers foreseen automatic weapons with armor-piercing bullets, they would have written the Second Amendment with a little more specificity.

Carrying all of those biases and beliefs, I was surprised by my reaction to Bee reporter Jim Guy’s recent story about a new state law that tightens restrictions on concealed carry permits. Specifically, the part where permit-holders would be prohibited from carrying handguns into “sensitive places” including banks, public parks, school grounds, churches, bars, liquor stores and the vast majority of restaurants and supermarkets.

What? My liberal brain, the same one packed with gun-control biases, slammed the brakes so hard it left mental skid marks.

The immediate thought: There’s no way that’s constitutional.

Followed shortly by: Why are policymakers wasting our time by passing laws that will surely get struck down in court?

Judge issues injunction

Two days later, a federal jurist in Los Angeles approved an injunction that prohibits certain provisions of SB 2 from going into effect in 2024.

“We live in dangerous times,” Judge Cormac J. Carney wrote in his Dec. 22 ruling. “The right of self-defense and to defend one’s family is fundamental and inherent to our very humanity irrespective of any formal codification.

“In their wisdom, the Founding Fathers recognized the need for individual citizens to protect themselves and their loved ones from those that would do them harm, and they knew that such a right could not be violated without the right to bear arms.”

Not sure I agree with the “dangerous times” part. Times have always been dangerous, and people are far more likely to die as a result of a reckless or inattentive driver than from gun violence.

The rest is senior year civics. The Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms for the protection of oneself and one’s family.

As a Fresno County resident, the knowledge that I’m living among 18,000 people licensed by the Fresno County sheriff to carry concealed handguns doesn’t make me feel any safer.

But if carrying makes those 18,000 people feel safer, that’s their constitutionally protected right. Has been since 1778.

Does this country have a gun problem? Absolutely. However, the problem is how easily guns with no real purpose except killing human beings wind up in the hands of criminals or the mentally unstable. That’s why we have so many mass shootings.

The problem is not law-abiding citizens that pay for permits to carry holstered handguns, submit to the necessary background checks and attend classes. During which attendees get the legal consequences, both the criminal and civil type, drilled into their heads of using their guns in non-lethal situations.

Sheriff revokes permits

The Fresno County Sheriff’s Office has revoked 103 concealed permits since 2000, typically following an arrest. Sheriff John Zanoni said “99.5%” of the time the charges have nothing to do with firearms and usually involve domestic violence, a fight or driving under the influence.

Those figures tell me the sheriff is doing his job. If concealed carry permits were seldom revoked, I’d be much more concerned.

In arguing against SB 2, another local law enforcement leader said mass shootings in public places are not committed “by someone who’s exercising their Second Amendment rights, it’s done by somebody who’s acting in a criminal way, committing mass homicide.”

That might be the first time I’ve agreed with anything said by Tulare County Sheriff (and congressional candidate) Mike Boudreaux.

Crazy things happen when government overreach extends too far.

By sponsoring and signing off on SB 2, state Sen. Anthony Portantino and Gov. Gavin Newsom want to make it seem like they’re doing something about our gun problem. Same goes for California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who vowed to appeal the federal judge’s ruling.

In reality, this law accomplishes very little besides persecuting law-abiding citizens in a manner that violates their constitutional rights.

If that’s obvious to someone like myself who doesn’t own guns and favors stricter gun control laws, it should be obvious to everyone. Certainly the next judge.