Kamala Harris

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Comma-La Coming To Asheville (Updated)

October 15, 2020 by

I don’t know how I’ve been so privileged but it seems I’m on the Joe Biden for President press release list for North Carolina events. I got this one yesterday announcing Kamala Harris is coming to Asheville today.

Kamala Harris to Travel to North Carolina

On Thursday, October 15, Kamala Harris will travel to Asheville and Charlotte, North Carolina on the first day of in-person early voting in the state.
In the morning, Senator Harris will deliver remarks at an early vote launch mobilization event in Asheville, North Carolina.

In the afternoon, Senator Harris will travel to Charlotte, North Carolina to participate in a campaign hub grand opening.
 
In the evening, Senator Harris will participate in a voter mobilization event to encourage North Carolinians to make their plan to vote early.

LOGISTICAL INFORMATION
Details are subject to change
 

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15

Early Vote Launch Mobilization Event with Kamala Harris in Asheville, NC

Start Time: 11:30 AM ET
Pooled Press and Livestreamed

I don’t know why Asheville is being so blessed except that the City Council has voted for reparations and is engaging in a Stalinesque erasure of history to include monuments, statues, and school names. It has been the scene of “mostly peaceful” riots, err, I mean demonstrations downtown.

For the last few years, I’ve been privileged to be on the email press release list of every lefty, progressive, you don’t need an ID to vote, guns are bad, ACB will destroy the Constitution, and we want to turn America into a socialist paradise type of group. I didn’t ask for them and most of the releases are enough to make your eyes roll into the back of your head. But, hey, someone has to get them.

UPDATE: It appears that Kamala will not be gracing Asheville with her presence. The groan you heard was all the sad lefties who were disappointed.

And the reason the event was canceled?

WLOS is reporting that one of her staffers has tested positive for COVID-19.

Just before the Senator was scheduled to land in Asheville, the campaign released the news. According to a press release, late Wednesday night, two individuals involved in the campaign tested positive for COVID-19: a non-staff flight crew member and Liz Allen, communications director to Senator Harris.

“Neither of these people have had contact with Vice President Biden, Senator Harris or any other staffers since testing positive or in the 48 hours prior to their positive test results.”

Senator Harris was not in close contact, as defined by the CDC, with either of these individuals during the two days prior to their positive tests; as such, there is no requirement for quarantine. Regardless, out of an abundance of caution and in line with our campaign’s commitment to the highest levels of precaution, the campaign is canceling Senator Harris’s travel through Sunday, October 18th.

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Quote Of The Day From Ben Stein

September 7, 2018 by

I like Ben Stein. I don’t think any actor could have done his deadpan teacher in Ferris Buehler’s Day Off any better. Sometimes his politics are a bit too country club Republican for my tastes but I can live with that. That said, I found his take on a couple of the Democrats questioning Judge Brett Kavanaugh absolutely spot on.

In an article for The American Spectator entitled, “What Mazie Doesn’t Know”, he wrote on Mazie Hirono and Kamala Harris:

Anyway, Judah Friedman and I drove around in his car, a gleaming Mazda 6, and listened to the torture of Judge Kavanaugh by some asinine nitwit named Mazie Hirono, a Senator from Hawaii. God help us. Book her, Danno. Somehow, she attacked Mr. Kavanaugh so violently she made me want to vomit. My guess is that she’s so INCREDIBLY stupid that she thought he was suddenly going to throw his hands in the air and say, “Senator, you nailed me. I was a concentration camp guard at Belsen. I surrender.”


Thirty minutes later, a true nitwit, our California Senator, Kamala Harris, started doing her Tom Cruise imitation trying to make Kavanaugh “confess” to having said the words “Mueller” and “investigation” to some unknown someone last year. She obviously thought she was just a spectacular courtroom bully. In fact, she was a pitiful little weasel.


And meanwhile, every few minutes some psycho in the audience gets up and starts cursing at Kavanaugh and the GOP. It’s really sad. What a bunch of losers the leftists and their pals in the audience are. They’re not going to get anything on Kavanaugh. There’s nothing to get. He’s a mega genius jurist who will make a superb High Court justice.

Stein is right. Kavanaugh will make a superb Supreme Court Justice and the Democrats on the committee know they can’t do a damn thing to stop him. I do like his characterization of Willie Brown’s ex-girlfriend as “a pitiful little weasel.” 

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Sorry Kamala, No Stay For You

November 21, 2014 by 2 Comments

California Attorney General Kamala Harris had sought a stay of Judge Anthony Ishii’s decision in Sylvester v. Harris. That was the case that challenged California’s 10-day waiting period as it applied to certain individuals. Her argument in a nutshell was “Hey, this is gonna cost us some bucks, we need to hire some folks to comply, I don’t see how we can comply within in a year, and you know we really have more important stuff to do.”

Telling a judge you have more important stuff to do than to comply with his order really isn’t the smartest thing in the world to do as Kamala and her minions found out. Judge Ishii, said in his best judge-speak, “dude, don’t give me that sh*@”.

The problem is that Defendant believes
that other projects are deserving of greater priority. See id. There is no description of what these
critical projects are or when the deadlines might be, nor is there an explanation of why outside
contractors cannot be utilized for some of those projects, nor is there an explanation of why
computer personnel from different departments or agencies cannot be utilized. A bench trial has
concluded, and a law that is actively being enforced has been found to be unconstitutional. The
Court does not know how Defendant or the BOF prioritizes projects, but dealing with an unconstitutional law should be towards the top of the list.

 The bottom line is that Judge Ishii is not going to stay his decision nor is he going to give the California Department of Justice and its Bureau of Firearms more time than the 6 months he already gave them.

More on the case from the CalGuns Foundation below:

ROSEVILLE, CA / November 20, 2014 – California’s laws requiring gun purchasers to wait at least ten days before taking possession of their lawfully-acquired firearms are one step closer to being history, reports The Calguns Foundation, a gun rights group headquartered in the Sacramento suburb of Roseville.


In a new order released today, Federal District Court Judge Anthony W. Ishii rejected two requests made by California Attorney General Kamala Harris in the dispute, captioned Silvester, et al. v. Harris, that was filed in Fresno nearly three years ago.


“Defendant [Harris] made various arguments to justify the waiting period, but the evidence did not actually support a 10-day waiting period,” today’s order noted. “The [state’s] arguments were more in line with rational basis scrutiny”– a weak form of judicial review that was expressly rejected in the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark District of Columbia v. Heller decision – “than with intermediate scrutiny,” which forces governments to prove how a law impinging on a constitutional right serves an important purpose.


In the case of the waiting period laws, Attorney General Harris couldn’t.


“The Court notes that Defendant has not identified any error of law or any erroneous factual finding,” Judge Ishii explained in his denial of Harris’ requests. “The Court stands by its analysis and its findings that the waiting period laws violate the Second Amendment” as applied to the three classes of individuals that, plaintiffs successfully argued, shouldn’t be subject to the laws.


Harris had moved for a modification of the original August court order – which gave the state Department of Justice six months to take whatever steps were necessary to bring the agency’s policies in line with civil rights standards – to allow it a year to comply with the ruling, and also to delay the court’s enforcement of the order entirely until the appeals process had concluded. Both motions were denied.


“A bench trial has concluded, and a law that is actively being enforced has been found to be unconstitutional. The Court does not know how Defendant or the BOF prioritizes projects, but dealing with an unconstitutional law should be towards the top of the list.”


“We’re pleased that Judge Ishii saw right through the Attorney General’s acrimonious delay tactics and properly denied her the opportunity to infringe our fundamental Second Amendment rights even more than she already has,” said Brandon Combs, the executive director of The Calguns Foundation and a plaintiff in the case. “Today’s court order bodes well for justice and, especially, for law-abiding gun purchasers.”


Harris, who has already filed a notice with the district court that she intends to take the loss to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, will presumably argue against the court’s holding that “the 10-day waiting period violate[s] the Second Amendment as applied to three classes of individuals,” like those similarly situated to individual plaintiffs Jeff Silvester and Combs.


Notably, the waiting period requirement was first passed in the same 1923 legislative act as California’s “may-issue” concealed carry laws and a ban on the public display of handguns by gun dealers. Both of those regulations are currently being challenged in federal lawsuits backed by The Calguns Foundation and the Second Amendment Foundation, who are institutional plaintiffs in the Silvester case. The Ninth Circuit is currently considering Yolo County Sheriff Ed Prieto’s request for rehearing of a decision that found his carry license policies violate the Second Amendment right to bear arms. Meanwhile, four gun dealers seeking to strike down the ban on commercial speech filed a motion for preliminary injunction in Sacramento’s federal district court on Monday, arguing the handgun display ban violates the First Amendment.

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California Gun Shops Suing Over First Amendment Violations

November 11, 2014 by

Four gun shops in California are suing California Attorney General Kamala Harris over a state law that prevents them from advertising handguns for sale. Penal Code Section 26820 which dates back to 1923 prohibits dealers from saying they have handguns for sale on their buildings. This includes even having a picture or drawing of a handgun posted where it can be seen from the street.

The suit, Tracy Rifle and Pistol et al v. Kamala Harris et al, alleges that the California law is a violation of the First Amendment rights of the gun shops and their owners. The complaint notes that handguns are lawful items and that the “First Amendment protects the dissemination of truthful, nonmisleading commercial information about lawful products”.

The attorneys for the plaintiffs are Stephen Duvernay of the Benbrook Law Group and Prof. Eugene Volokh of the UCLA School of Law. Prof. Volokh also runs the well-known legal blog The Volokh Conspiracy.

The lawsuit is being supported by the California Association of FFLs, the CalGuns Foundation, and the Second Amendment Foundation.

The release about the case from the Firearm Policy Coalition is below:

November 10, 2014 (SACRAMENTO, CA) — Four California gun dealers are filing a federal lawsuit today against California Attorney General Kamala Harris over what they say is a violation of their First Amendment civil rights. Stephen Lindley, who heads the DOJ’s Bureau of Firearms, is named as a co-defendant in the case.


Tracy Rifle and Pistol, a firearm retailer and indoor shooting range located in San Joaquin County, was recently cited by Harris’ Department of Justice for having pictures of three handguns in window signs that can be seen outside the store. California Penal Code section 26820, first enacted in 1923, bans gun stores from putting up signs advertising the sale of handguns — but not shotguns or rifles. An adjacent window image at Tracy Rifle, which shows a photograph of an AR-15 rifle, was not cited by the DOJ.


“I run one of the most heavily regulated and inspected businesses in existence, but it’s still illegal for me to show customers that I sell handguns until after they walk in the door,” explained Michael Baryla, the owner of Tracy Rifle & Pistol. “That’s about as silly a law as you could imagine, even here in California.”


While California gun dealers cannot display even the word ‘handgun’ at their stores to passersby, adjacent businesses and anti-gun protesters are not prohibited from doing as much. The court filings argue that the law operates as unconstitutional speaker, content, and viewpoint-based discrimination, in addition to having other legal problems.


Similar statutes banning handgun displays can be found in places like Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington, D.C., but the California Department of Justice appears to be the only state agency enforcing provisions like the challenged ban.


The lawsuit claims that this restriction violates gun stores’ First Amendment rights, by severely restricting truthful, non-misleading commercial speech. Lead counsel Bradley Benbrook said about the lawsuit, “The First Amendment prevents the government from telling businesses it disfavors that they can’t engage in truthful advertising. This case follows a long line of Supreme Court cases protecting such disfavored businesses from that type of censorship.”


Though the case doesn’t claim a Second Amendment violation, plaintiffs do argue that commercial advertisement of constitutionally protected products and services — whether abortion, contraceptives, or guns — is especially clearly protected under the First Amendment.


The plaintiffs are also represented by Benbrook’s colleague Stephen Duvernay and Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor who has written and taught extensively about the First and Second Amendments. Before joining the UCLA faculty 20 years ago, Volokh clerked for Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court. He also operates the popular legal blog “The Volokh Conspiracy,” now hosted at the Washington Post.


California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees, the state’s firearm industry association, joined gun rights groups The Calguns Foundation and Second Amendment Foundation in support of the case.


The lawsuit’s other plaintiffs include Sacramento Black Rifle of Rocklin, Ten Percent Firearms of Taft, and PRK Arms, a Fresno-based dealer that operates a chain of three stores in California’s Central San Joaquin Valley, as well as business owners Robert Adams, Wesley Morris, and Jeffrey Mullen, respectively.


A copy of the complaint can be viewed at http://www.calgunsfoundation.org/litigation/trap-v-harris.

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Peruta Case Isn’t Done Yet

May 21, 2014 by 3 Comments

On May 1st, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Sheriff William Gore to respond within 14 days to two questions. First, did the sheriff have a position on whether California AG Kamala Harris should be allowed to intervene in the case? Second, did he consider this case moot as he had starting issuing carry permits on a shall-issue basis?

Gore responded on Wednesday, May 14th in a letter signed by the Senior Deputy County Counsel James Chapin that was sent to the Clerk of Court. The letter said:

The Court has requested the position of Appellee William Gore on the
pending motions to intervene and a response to the suggestion that this case is
moot. Appellee responds as follows:

Motions to Intervene.

Appellee believes that the Attorney General is the appropriate intervenor in
this case because the panel opinion finds California’s legislative scheme regarding
the carrying of handguns unconstitutional. Appellee requests that the Court grant
the Attorney General’s Motion to Intervene. Appellee takes no position on other
intervenors.

Mootness.

This case is not moot. Appellee has not changed his policy or procedures for
the issuance of concealed carry licenses. All current applications that do not meet
the existing policy are being held without action, pending final direction from the
Court or the Legislature.

Intervenor status was also sought by the Brady Campaign. An en banc review of the Peruta decision is being sought by Harris, the Brady Campaign, the California Peace Officers Association, and the California Police Chiefs Association.

As attorney Chuck Michel made clear back in March, both Gore and the plaintiffs had asked Harris to participate in the case she declined. It was only after Peruta was decided in favor of the plaintiffs did she try to intervene. I guess she never thought the 9th Circuit would decide in favor of the plaintiffs and in such a forceful decision.

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CalGuns And Cal-FFL Have To Take AG Kamala Harris To Court – Again

May 21, 2014 by 1 Comment

In a release sent out on Tuesday, the CalGuns Foundation and Cal-FFL have announced that they are or will be suing California Attorney General Kamala Harris over a new policy she has implemented for the California Department of Justice. The new policy limits those who have a California issued certificate of eligibility and a federal firearms license to the purchase of one handgun per month. They assert that Harris’ reinterpretation of an existing statute is contrary to the meaning of the law itself.

From their joint release announcing the lawsuit:

California Attorney General Kamala Harris Sued Over New Handgun Purchase Ban

Gun rights groups back lawsuit to restore the right to buy handguns in the Golden State.

(Sacramento, CA – May 20, 2014) – California Attorney General Kamala Harris continues to substitute anti-gun policies for black letter law, say California gun rights groups The Calguns Foundation (CGF) and California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees (CAL-FFL).

In a new lawsuit filed today against the state’s highest law enforcement officer and Department of Justice firearms bureau chief Stephen Lindley, plaintiffs Alvin Doe–who is using a fictitious name to protect their privacy due to a fear of criminal prosecution and retaliation–and Paul Gladden say that “the DOJ’s new [handgun] enforcement policy is contrary to the plain language” of the law.

The case challenges a recently enacted DOJ policy that denies people who have both a DOJ-issued “Certificate of Eligibility” to purchase firearms and a federal firearms license the ability to purchase more than one handgun in a thirty-day period. Holders of these licenses and certificates, such as the plaintiffs, have successfully completed rigorous fingerprint-based background checks that include full investigations of all state and federal criminal and mental health databases. The policy, say the plaintiffs, is simply not consistent with the law and does nothing to enhance public safety.

“The Attorney General’s new policy blocks individuals from exercising rights that the Legislature granted them,” said the plaintiffs’ attorney, Bradley Benbrook of Sacramento-based law firm Benbrook Law Group. The firm, which recently filed a brief to the United States Supreme Court on behalf of 33 members of Congress in support of the Second Amendment right to carry handguns for self-defense, is asking the court for an injunction against the DOJ policy.

“Ms. Harris’ attempt to restrict lawful handgun sales by reinterpreting a 15 year old statute is entirely inconsistent with the democratic process and separation of powers,” said CAL-FFL President Brandon Combs.

Continued Combs, “Her latest ban is nothing short of an attempt to choke off handgun purchases and shutter California gun dealers. We cannot stand by and let her hostility towards the gun rights culture go unchallenged.”

“The Attorney General is there to be the chief law enforcement officer, not to make up laws to fit her policy preferences,” explained Gene Hoffman, chairman of The Calguns Foundation. “We look forward to the courts rejecting her extralegal interpretation.”

The plaintiffs expect to file their motion for preliminary injunction on Friday and are cautiously optimistic that the case will be heard within the next month.

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Great Response To California AG Harris’ Attempt To Appeal Peruta

March 3, 2014 by 5 Comments

Attorney Chuck Michel is the West Coast attorney for the National Rifle Association and was the trial counsel in Peruta v. County of San Diego. He issued an interesting statement on Friday regarding the attempt by California Attorney General Kamala Harris to intervene and appeal the case.

Michel notes that when the Attorney General was named in other suits regarding carry, she successfully argued that the power to administer carry licenses lay with the sheriffs and not her. In the statement below, he uses her own language in official filings to impeach her efforts to intervene in the Peruta case.

From the statement:

The Attorney General’s office was repeatedly invited to participate in this case both by Sheriff Gore’s attorney, and by the plaintiffs. The Attorney General declined to participate in the case, just as she has refused to get involved in similar cases challenging policies in other cities and counties that refused to accept self-defense as justification to get a license to carry a firearm in public to defend yourself and your family.

In fact, when the Attorney General’s office was named as a defendant in some of those cases, it has successfully moved to be dismissed from the cases because the court has accepted the Attorney General’s argument that she is not the official vested with the authority of the state when it comes to administering these licenses – the Sheriff is.

Excerpts from Mehl:

1) “Since only sheriffs and chiefs of police have authority under the CCW statutes to grant, deny or revoke licenses, Applicants cannot establish Article III jurisdiction over the Attorney General with regard to their facial challenges to the validity of the statutes or for review of the Sheriff’s refusal to grant their CCW licenses.”

2) “Only sheriffs and chiefs of police are authorized to perform these functions. . . . Contrary to Applicants’ implication, the Attorney General is not authorized by the CCW statutes to review the decisions of the sheriffs and chiefs of police. Because Applicants’ alleged injury can occur only through the actions of the Sheriff, independent of the authority of the Attorney General, any ostensible harm cannot be traced to the Attorney General.” Mehl v. Blanas.

It is ironic that the Attorney General does not recognize that the arguments she made about her authority to abandon the defense of the gay marriage ban apply equally here. The Sheriff has the ultimate authority to decide whether to continue to fight this case, and he has made his decision to refrain from doing so. But now that it suits her political agenda, Kamala Harris wants the court to impose a double standard.

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California Attorney General’s Statement Regarding Peruta Appeal

February 28, 2014 by 8 Comments

California Attorney General Kamala Harris released this statement yesterday explaining why she was appealing the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Peruta v. San Diego.

Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today filed a petition in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, on behalf of the State of California, urging the court to review and reverse its decision in Peruta v. County of San Diego.


In its February 13, 2014 Peruta decision, the Ninth Circuit ruled that San Diego County violates the Second Amendment by requiring individuals to show “good cause,” beyond a mere desire to carry a gun, when applying for a concealed-carry weapons permit.


“Local law enforcement must be able to use their discretion to determine who can carry a concealed weapon,” Attorney General Harris said. “I will do everything possible to restore law enforcement’s authority to protect public safety, and so today am calling on the court to review and reverse its decision.”


California state law currently requires individuals to show “good cause” to carry a concealed weapon, but gives local law enforcement control over the permit process. If the Ninth Circuit’s ruling is allowed to take effect, officials throughout the State could be required to issue concealed-carry permits to individuals based on nothing more than the applicant’s assertion that they wish to carry a gun for self-defense.


In San Diego County, concealed-carry permit applicants have, until now, been required to show “good cause” by demonstrating “a set of circumstances that distinguish the applicant from the mainstream and causes him or her to be placed in harm’s way.”


On February 21, 2014 San Diego Sheriff Bill Gore announced he would not seek further review of the Ninth Circuit’s ruling.

As I read Harris’ statement I was struck by two things which I have highlighted. First, she wants “Only Ones” to be able to say yea or nay to who may have a carry permit. This is the same situation we had until recently in the Jim Crow-era South. In North Carolina, pistol purchase permits are still in the hands of local sheriffs but they now have less discretion to deny a permit. When the law was passed by the NC General Assembly in 1919, the intent was that local sheriff would grant pistol purchase permits to upstanding white men and women while denying that same right to blacks. It was racist then and its racist now.

The second thing in Harris’ statement that struck me was the horror expressed that California officials would be required to issue carry permits “based on nothing more than the applicant’s assertion that they wish to carry a gun for self-defense.” Can you imagine the nerve of those ordinary people wanting the same privilege reserved for the high and mighty and/or large donors to sheriffs’ election funds? Does not the ordinary citizen have the same right to self-defense of him or herself?

California prides itself on being a trendsetter. In this case, it is lagging the nation including states like Illinois where, until late last year, carry was reserved for cops and Chicago aldermen.

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Anti’s Seek En Banc Review Of Peruta Decision

February 28, 2014 by 7 Comments

You just knew that the gun prohibitionists would not take the win in the Peruta decision lying down especially since San Diego Sheriff Bill Gore decided to accept the decision.

Today, in what seems to be a coordinated effort, California Attorney General Kamala Harris, the Brady Campaign, the Legal Community Against Violence, the California Peace Officers Association, and the California Police Chiefs Association filed petitions requesting an en banc hearing. The State of California represented by Harris and the Brady Campaign also filed motions to intervene in the case.

02/27/2014
 121  		Filed (ECF) Amici Curiae California
Peace Officers Association and California Police Chiefs Association
petition for rehearing en banc (from 02/13/2014 opinion). Date of
service: 02/27/2014. [8996109]–[COURT UPDATE: Attached searchable
version of petition. Resent NDA. 02/27/2014 by RY] (PRC)
02/27/2014
 122  		Submitted (ECF) Intervenor brief for
review and filed Motion to intervene. Submitted by State of California.
Date of service: 02/27/2014. [8996638] (GDB)
02/27/2014
 123  		Submitted (ECF) Intervenor brief for
review and filed Motion to intervene. Submitted by Brady Center to
Prevent Gun Violence. Date of service: 02/27/2014. [8996736] (NRO)
02/27/2014
 124  		Filed (ECF) Amicus Curiae Legal
Community Against Violence petition for rehearing en banc (from
02/13/2014 opinion). Date of service: 02/27/2014. [8996737] (SJF)

In an article by Emily Miller this evening, Chuck Michel questioned whether any of these parties have standing.

Chuck Michel, the west coast counsel for the National Rifle Association, said Ms. Harris‘ motion to intervene was far out of line because her office wasn’t part of the lawsuit.


“They are trying to improperly influence the court,” Mr. Michel said in an interview. “The are stretching the rules to file in order to get their arguments in front of the court in the hopes that a liberal judge will get the message and ask for a vote himself.”…


“Obviously, what this tells us is the folks that advocate civilian disarmament are upset about the opinion and want to throw everything they can at it to bottle up the 9th Circuit or get it overturned,” said Mr. Michel, whose firm, Michel and Associates, represented the plaintiffs in the Peruta case up to the appeals court level.

UPDATE: As to why Kamala Harris et al are trying to get the Peruta decision reviewed and overturned, I think this story from Fox News pretty much gives the reason.

Gun owners are flooding the sheriff’s offices in two California counties with applications for concealed weapon permits following a bombshell ruling two weeks ago by a federal appeals court that citizens need not justify their requests.

Orange and Ventura counties have dropped the “good cause” standard for issuing conceal carry permits after the requirement was struck down Feb. 13 by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeal. A three-judge panel of the court ruled 2 to 1 that the Second Amendment bars California counties from requiring law-abiding gun owners who want to carry concealed firearms to demonstrate special, individualized needs for protection.

More than 500 applications have poured in to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department in just two weeks — roughly the total number of applications filed in 2013, a spokesman said. Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens announced on the department’s website that the county will comply with the federal court’s order immediately, sparking the wave of applications.

Once the proles get their permits to carry you just can’t keep them down anymore.

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California Waiting Period Fails To Meet Constitutional Muster

December 9, 2013 by 2 Comments

Senior Federal District Court Judge Anthony W. Ishii denied Attorney General Kamala Harris’ Motion for Summary Judgment today and indicated that California’s 10-day waiting period probably is unconstitutional when viewed under either intermediate or strict scrutiny.

The CalGuns Foundation which along with the Second Amendment Foundation brought the case
challenging the 10-day waiting period is extremely pleased by this development as noted in their press release below.

I’ll have more after I’ve had to read the ruling. Sebastian at Shall Not Be Issued has some comments on the case here. Likewise, Professor Eugene Volokh has his analysis of the decision here.

From CalGuns:

Federal Judge Says California Attorney General Kamala Harris Wrong on Gun Control Laws

Court denies Harris’ arguments and agrees with gun rights group The Calguns Foundation, says state’s firearm waiting period laws fail to meet Constitutional muster

ROSEVILLE, CA — In a rejection of California Attorney General Kamala Harris’ stance on the rights of law-abiding gun owners, Senior Federal District Court Judge Anthony W. Ishii denied Harris’ motion for summary judgement today in a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by The Calguns Foundation, indicating that California’s 10-day “waiting period” gun laws are likely unconstitutional.

“The fact that a federal judge saw these laws for what they are — baseless restraints on the exercise of a fundamental civil right — is monumental,” explained Gene Hoffman, Chairman of The Calguns Foundation. “California’s waiting period laws for those who own guns is not Constitutional and this order really underlines the point.”

In his order, Judge Ishii said that Harris has “not presented sufficient evidence to show that the [10-day waiting period laws] passes either intermediate or strict scrutiny.”

About the laws being challenged in the case, named plaintiff Jeff Silvester of Hanford, California, said, “I have a license to carry a loaded firearm across the State.It is ridiculous that I have to wait another 10 days to pick up a new firearm when I’m standing there in the gun store lawfully carrying one the whole time.”

“This is certainly an exciting development in Second Amendment case law,” noted Brandon Combs, an individual plaintiff in the case and the Executive Director of The Calguns Foundation. “If our Constitution means what it says, then California’s gun waiting period laws have to be overturned and law-abiding people must be allowed to exercise their rights without irrational infringements.”

Regardless of the final decision at the district court, the case is virtually certain to end up at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and possibly even the United States Supreme Court.

“Cases like this one will define the limits of government regulations on firearms and Second Amendment rights,” said Combs. “We look forward to making sure laws like California’s waiting period are properly scrutinized by the courts.”

Judge Ishii was appointed to the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of California by President Bill Clinton in 1997.

A full copy of the Court’s December 9, 2013, order may be viewed at http://www.calgunsfoundation.org/?p=1683.

The press release announcing the lawsuit and case docket may be viewed at http://www.calgunsfoundation.org/?p=1024.

UPDATE: Here is the correct link to the Court’s Dec. 9th order denying the motion for summary judgment.