Numerous California Gun Controls Challenged in Light of Bruen

A series of cases challenging California gun control in light of NYSRPA v. Bruen (2022) are set to begin Monday in federal court in San Diego.

Breitbart News reported the Supreme Court of the United States struck down New York’s proper cause requirement for concealed carry permit issuance on June 23, 2022, via Bruen.

In the majority opinion for the Bruen decision, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the Second Amendment protects an “individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.”

He noted, “Although we remarked in [District of Columbia v. Heller (2008)] that the need for armed self-defense is perhaps ‘most acute’ in the home, id., at 628, we did not suggest that the need was insignificant elsewhere. Many Americans hazard greater danger outside the home than in it…[and] the text of the Second Amendment reflects that reality.”

The Washington Times paraphrased Thomas’s emphasis on the important of rulings like Bruen, McDonald v. Chicago (2010), and Heller, saying, “The test courts must apply is whether a firearms restriction would have seemed reasonable to the founding generation that crafted and ratified the Second Amendment. If not, the law must give way to the Constitution.”

Now California gun control will challenged in light of Bruen.

The San Diego Union-Tribune observed hearings being Monday in cases that “could bring sweeping changes to local and state gun laws, including those that outlaw homemade firearms, those that ban assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, and those that restrict gun purchases based on a buyer’s age or the frequency of the buyer’s purchases.”

Chuck Michel, attorney and president of California Rifle and Pistol Association, noted that challenges against these California gun control laws have been brought before, but that was prior to the specific method for testing gun control laws as set forth in Bruen.

Michel noted, “Now it’s a new test. Everything has to be reevaluated under the new test. This is a do-over.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. AWR Hawkins holds a PhD in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.