Flanagan Giffords Brief
Flanagan Giffords Brief
Flanagan Giffords Brief
No. 18-55717
Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence states that it has no parent
corporations. It has no stock, and therefore no publicly held company owns 10%
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ARGUMENT ............................................................................................................ 4
I. The Court Should Apply Intermediate Scrutiny to Review California’s
Public-Carry Laws. ......................................................................................... 4
CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................... 22
i
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TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
CASES Page
Bauer v. Becerra,
858 F.3d 1216 (9th Cir. 2017) .............................................................................. 1
Fyock v. Sunnyvale,
779 F.3d 991 (9th Cir. 2015) ..................................................................4, 7, 8, 12
Gould v. Morgan,
907 F.3d 659 (1st Cir. 2018) .......................................................................6, 8, 13
Jackson v. City & Cty. of San Francisco,
746 F.3d 953 (9th Cir. 2014) .......................................................................passim
Mahoney v. Sessions,
871 F.3d 873 (9th Cir. 2017) ..............................................................................13
McDonald v. City of Chicago,
561 U.S. 742 (2010) ..........................................................................................1, 9
Peruta v. Cty. of San Diego,
824 F.3d 919 (9th Cir. 2016) (en banc) ..........................................................1, 21
Young v. Hawaii,
896 F.3d 1044 (9th Cir. 2018), petition for en banc reh’g filed, No.
12-17808 (9th Cir. Sept. 14, 2018) ...........................................................7, 14, 20
ii
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CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS
U.S. Const. amend. II ........................................................................................passim
STATUTES
Cal. Penal Code § 17030 ..........................................................................2, 3, 5, 9, 15
OTHER AUTHORITIES
Bill Laitner, Open-carry activist speaks out after school lockdown
scare, Detroit Free Press (March 12, 2015),
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/03/12/gun-
rights-open-carry-michigan-school-property/70249066/ ...................................19
iii
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Dennis Hoey, Man with assault rifle prompts flurry of police calls in
Portland, Portland Press Herald (December 24, 2012),
http://www.pressherald.com/2012/12/24/man-with-gun-attracts-
attention-on-back-cove-trail/. .............................................................................18
Emily Badger, More Guns, Less Crime? Not Exactly, Wash. Post
(July 29, 2014),
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/07/29/more
-guns-less-crime-not-exactly/ .............................................................................14
iv
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Ian Ayres & John J. Donohue III, Shooting Down the ‘More Guns,
Less Crime’ Hypothesis, 55 Stan. L. Rev. 1193, 1270-71 (2003),
http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/1241.........................................14
John R. Lott, Jr., More Guns Less Crime (1st ed. 1998) .........................................14
Josh Blackman & James C. Phillips, Corpus Linguistics and the
Second Amendment, Harv. L. Rev. Blog (Aug. 7, 2018),
https://blog.harvardlawreview.org/corpus-linguistics-and-the-
second-amendment/ ............................................................................................21
Man with gun causes scare during children's baseball game, WSB-
TV (Apr. 24, 2014), https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/man-gun-
causes-scare-during-childrens-baseball-gam/137105583...................................19
Mark Duggan, More Guns, More Crime, 109 J. Pol. Econ. 1086,
1109–10 (2001),
https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/dranove/htm/dranov
e/coursepages/Mgmt%20469/guns.pdf...............................................................15
v
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Nat’l Ctr. for Health Stats., Stats of the State of California (2016),
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/states/california/california.ht
m......................................................................................................................3, 13
vi
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writing, enacting, and defending laws and programs proven to reduce gun violence
and save lives. Giffords Law Center provides free assistance and expertise to
lawmakers, advocates, legal professionals, law enforcement, and citizens who seek
to make their communities safer from gun violence, and has a strong interest in
Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008); McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010);
Peruta v. Cty. of San Diego, 824 F.3d 919 (9th Cir. 2016) (en banc); Teixeira v.
Cty. of Alameda, 873 F.3d 670 (9th Cir. 2017) (en banc); and Bauer v. Becerra,
1
No counsel for a party authored this brief in whole or in part and no person other
than amicus curiae and its counsel made a monetary contribution to its preparation
or submission. All parties to this action have consented to the filing of this brief.
Fed. R. App. P. 29; Ninth Cir. R. 29-2.
1
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nonetheless create unacceptable risks to the public generally and law enforcement
thirty civilians in attendance were lawfully carrying openly displayed rifles. The
Dallas Police Chief described the deadly confusion that ensued: “We don’t know
who the good guy is versus the bad guy when everyone starts shooting.” In the
time it took to identify the gunman, twelve officers were shot, five of them fatally.
To no surprise, studies confirm what the Dallas shooting suggests: more guns in
sought to curb gun violence and the deadly confusion engendered by introducing
like Los Angeles, where the risk of gun violence is greatest, as well as in those
weapon. Cal. Penal Code §§ 25850, 17030 (open carry); id. §§ 25655, 26150(a)(2)
2
Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Dallas police chief: Open carry makes things confusing
during mass shootings, Los Angeles Times (July 11, 2016),
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-dallas-chief-20160711-snap-story.html.
2
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(concealed carry). By all accounts, the state’s efforts have been successful:
Between 1993 and 2016, California’s gun death rate fell by 55% and remains well
below the national average today—7.9 deaths per 100,000, compared to the
At the same time, California was careful not to place a substantial burden on
the Second Amendment right to self-defense in public, such that its laws are
City & Cty. of San Francisco, 746 F.3d 953, 961 (9th Cir. 2014). Indeed,
firearms when and where they are most likely to need them. Ordinary, law-abiding
citizens may openly carry firearms whenever they are faced with an immediate,
grave danger. Cal. Penal Code § 26045(a). And those same citizens may carry a
services are limited, or carry a concealed firearm in less remote areas (after making
a showing of good cause). See id. §§ 25850(a), 17030 (unincorporated areas); id.
3
Giffords Law Center, California’s Smart Gun Laws: A Blueprint for the Nation
(Nov. 20, 2018), http://lawcenter.giffords.org/californias-smart-gun-laws-a-
blueprint-for-the-nation; Nat’l Ctr. for Health Stats., Stats of the State of California
(2016), https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/states/california/california.htm.
3
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substantial evidence demonstrates that its laws reasonably fit the undisputedly
critical objective of promoting public safety. See Fyock v. Sunnyvale, 779 F.3d
991, 1000 (9th Cir. 2015). Studies confirm the common-sense conclusion that
permissive public-carry laws place all parties involved at increased risk of gun
California has adopted, even well-intentioned gun carriers can throw the public and
the police charged with protecting them into a state of potentially deadly
confusion.
promote public safety by mitigating gun violence and reducing deadly confusion
demonstrating the reasonable fit required. Id. This Court should affirm the
decision below.
ARGUMENT
do not place a substantial burden on the Second Amendment right. See Jackson,
746 F.3d at 961. In determining the appropriate level of scrutiny, this Court
considers the burden a state’s laws place on the right. Id. When the state’s laws
4
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“leave open alternative channels for self-defense,” the attendant burden placed on
the right is “not substantial” and intermediate scrutiny is appropriate. Id. Because
California’s public-carry regime, and in particular its open-carry laws, leave open
Id.
Far from a wholesale ban on public carry, California’s laws preserve the
right to self-defense in public when the need is the greatest. For example, in the
necessary to do so. Cal. Penal Code § 26045(a). When the danger is less
immediate, but still grave, a restraining order may effectively serve as a license to
needed, but it is preserved in the public places where that need is most likely to
limited, open carry remains unrestricted in any public place or street where it is not
policed, incorporated areas, ordinary, law-abiding citizens may still carry a firearm
in public, albeit concealed, after making a showing of good cause. Id. §§ 25655,
5
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public when venturing between any private businesses or residences that permit
open carry. Id. §§ 26405(c). And if that were not enough, those same citizens may
exercise self-defense by obtaining and carrying less lethal weapons, such as stun
guns and pepper spray, almost everywhere in public. See Cal. Penal Code §§
22610, 22810.
“not substantial,” and intermediate scrutiny therefore applies. Jackson, 746 F.3d at
961. Indeed, intermediate scrutiny makes particular sense for laws regulating guns
in public. Bonidy v. U.S. Postal Serv., 790 F.3d 1121, 1126 (10th Cir. 2015).
While other fundamental rights reviewed under a strict scrutiny test, like the right
to marry, “can be exercised without creating a direct risk to others,” the Second
Amendment right cannot. Id. Any right to armed self-defense in public carries
including restrictions that would be suspect if applied within the home. See, e.g.,
Gould v. Morgan, 907 F.3d 659, 672 (1st Cir. 2018) (“Many constitutional rights
are virtually unfettered inside the home but become subject to reasonable
6
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Intermediate scrutiny remains the correct test despite the divided panel
decision in Young v. Hawaii, 896 F.3d 1044, 1071 (9th Cir. 2018), petition for en
banc reh’g filed, No. 12-17808 (9th Cir. Sept. 14, 2018). The Young panel
the law entirely foreclosed ordinary citizens from exercising their Second
Amendment right. Id. at 1070–71. Far from foreclosing that right, California
allows any ordinary, law-abiding citizen to carry a visible firearm in remote areas
scrutiny to public-carry law that the panel determined was more restrictive than,
and did not function like, a good-cause law); see also id. at 1071 n.21.
do not place a substantial burden on the Second Amendment right, but instead
the undisputedly critical objective of promoting public safety. See Fyock, 779 F.3d
7
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at 1000. A reasonable fit does not require the state to show that the law is “the
least restrictive means of achieving its interest.” Id. Instead, it requires the state to
show that the law’s objective “would be achieved less effectively absent the
believed to be relevant” to the problem addressed. Id; see also, e.g., Gould, 907
F.3d at 673 (court may not “substitut[e] its own appraisal of the facts for a
In the absence of California’s restrictions on public carry, the public and the
police charged with protecting them would be put at increased risk of gun violence
anecdotes, and even common sense. Fla. Bar v. Went For It, Inc., 515 U.S. 618,
those risks would be achieved less effectively in the absence of its public carry
intermediate scrutiny. 4
4
The tailored exceptions and alternatives available under California’s public-carry
laws confirm that the laws bear not only a reasonable fit, but a close fit to
California’s public safety goals. For this reason and the others presented in the
State’s brief, Giffords Law Center joins the State’s argument that California’s laws
survive strict scrutiny. (State Appellee Br. at 54-57.)
8
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one with more sinister motivations. In crafting its laws, California was careful to
reserve its strongest restrictions for incorporated areas, where high population
density increases the potential for a gunman to inflict casualties and regular
policing by law enforcement maintains the public peace. See McDonald v. City of
Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 902 (2010); Cal. Penal Code §§ 25850, 17030. In the
absence of those and other restrictions on public carry, there is little doubt that the
public, police, and gun carriers themselves would be put at increased risk of gun
violence.
Simple common sense tells us that more guns in public mean more gun
violence. See Went For It, Inc., 515 U.S. at 628 (common sense can justify
regulations). Too many stories start with everyday disputes and end in fatal
confrontations when someone pulls out a gun. Take the road rage killings of two
former NFL players in Louisiana.5 One of these incidents started with a minor car
5
The Associated Press, Trial Begins Monday for Man Accused of Killing Ex-
NFLer in Louisiana Road-Rage Incident, NBC News (Dec. 4, 2016),
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trial-begins-monday-man-accused-killing-
ex-nfler-louisiana-road-n691701; CNN Wire, Man Suspected of Shooting Former
USC Running Back Joe McKnight Released from Custody, KTLA 5 NEWS (Dec.
9
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collision, and the other started when one driver possibly cut off the other in traffic;
laws, like those in Louisiana, fuel violent crime and homicide. In a 2017 study
revised this month, Stanford Professor John Donohue (and colleagues) identified
persistent increases in rates of assault and other violent crimes after a state’s
compared to what would have been expected without shall-issue policies, the laws
years. 7 Indeed, during the nationwide decline in violent crime over the nearly
forty-year period analyzed, states that never adopted shall-issue laws, like
times greater than states that did adopt such laws. 8 The study attributed the higher
2, 2016), http://ktla.com/2016/12/02/man-suspected-of-shooting-former-usc-
running-back-joe-mcknight-released-from-custody/.
6
See, e.g., David Wright, Road Rage Leads to Shooting, Suicide, ABC News (June
19, 2018), https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=93070&page=1; Freeway Shooter
on the Loose in Apparent Case of Road Rage, CBS LA, May 19, 2018,
https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2018/05/19/freeway-shooting-moreno-valley/.
7
John J. Donohue et al., Right-to-Carry Laws and Violent Crime: A
Comprehensive Assessment Using Panel Data, the LASSO, and a State-Level
Synthetic Controls Analysis, Nat’l Bureau Econ. Res. 42 (June 2017, revised Nov.
2018), https://www.nber.org/papers/w23510.
8
Id. at 16.
10
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violent crime rates in shall-issue states to both otherwise law-abiding citizens with
permits, who may end up committing crimes that they otherwise would not have,
and criminals, who feel a greater need to carry a gun and have greater access to one
Not only does violent crime increase in general in states with lower
linked shall-issue laws to higher homicide rates. Between 1991 and 2015, shall-
issue laws were significantly associated with 6.5% higher total homicide rates,
8.5% higher firearm homicide rates, and 10.6% higher handgun homicide rates.10
Just as lax gun regulations harm the public by increasing violent crime and
homicide, so too do they harm the gun carriers themselves. One study of more
may increase a victim’s risk of injury by more than four times. 11 Indeed, that
9
Id. at 5–16.
10
See Michael Siegel, et al., Easiness of Legal Access to Concealed Firearm
Permits and Homicide Rates in the United States, 107 Am. J. Pub. Health 1923,
1923–24 (Dec. 2017),
https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.2105/AJPH.2017.304057.
11
See Charles C. Branas et al., Investigating the Link Between Gun Possession and
Gun Assault, 99 Am. J. Pub. Health 2034, 2037 (Nov. 2009),
https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2008.143099.
11
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number jumps to five times when the gun-carrying victim has some chance at
resistance. And that makes sense. Few possess the skills required to defend
judgments about when and how to shoot in chaotic, high-stress situations requires a
high level of familiarity with tactics and the ability to manage stress under intense
pressure.”12 Unsurprisingly, victims of violent crimes use firearms in less than one
percent of all criminal incidents,13 and data from the National Crime Victimization
Surveys provide little evidence that defensive gun use is beneficial in reducing the
public-carry studies demonstrate a reasonable fit between California’s laws and its
important interest in reducing gun violence. See Fyock, 779 F.3d at 1000. The
12
Daniel W. Webster et al., Firearms on College Campuses: Research Evidence
and Policy Implications 10 (Oct. 15, 2016),
https://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/johns-hopkins-center-for-
gun-policy-and-research/_pdfs/GunsOnCampus.pdf (explaining how inadequately
trained gun carriers may end up “wounding or killing innocent victims” when
attempting self-defense).
13
David Hemenway & Sara J. Solnick, The Epidemiology of Self-Defense Gun
Use: Evidence from the National Crime Victimization Surveys 2007–2011, 79
Preventive Med. 22, 23 (Oct. 2015).
14
See id. at 23–24.
12
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inference that its regulations would decrease overall gun violence. And the
protect the public and gun carriers alike. See Mahoney v. Sessions, 871 F.3d 873,
883 (9th Cir. 2017) (crediting city’s “reasonable inferences” that challenged policy
eliminates any doubt as to whether its inferences are reasonable. Between 1993
and 2016, California’s firearm death rate fell by 55% and remains well below the
national average today—7.9 deaths per 100,000, compared to the national average
public carry policies, the sustained improvements in California’s gun death rate
confirm that the state’s public-carry laws represent an informed, reasonable, and
constitutional policy choice. See, e.g., Gould, 907 F.3d at 674–75 (“Massachusetts
consistently has one of the lowest rates of gun-related deaths in the nation,”
bearing out state’s evidence that its public carry law substantially furthers public
15
Giffords Law Center, California’s Smart Gun Laws: A Blueprint for the Nation
(Nov. 20, 2018), http://lawcenter.giffords.org/californias-smart-gun-laws-a-
blueprint-for-the-nation; Nat’l Ctr. for Health Stats., Stats of the State of California
(2016), https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/states/california/california.htm.
13
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safety); see also Young, 896 F.3d at 1082 (Clifton, J., dissenting) (“Hawaii has a
The flawed hypothesis that crime rates are lower in states with lax public-carry
laws can be traced back to a book published by John Lott in 1998. 16 But Lott’s
conclusion that lax laws are associated with lower crime rates has since been
gun law passage for all the states studied. When researchers disaggregated the
effects for each state, it became clear that crime increased more often after the
passage of concealed-carry laws than it decreased.18 Second, Lott used crime data
at the county level and did not account for changing laws at the state level. When
16
John R. Lott, Jr., More Guns Less Crime (1st ed. 1998).
17
See, e.g., Emily Badger, More Guns, Less Crime? Not Exactly, Wash. Post (July
29, 2014), https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/07/29/more-
guns-less-crime-not-exactly/ (“Numerous studies have critiqued [Lott’s]
methodology.”).
18
Ian Ayres & John J. Donohue III, Shooting Down the ‘More Guns, Less Crime’
Hypothesis, 55 Stan. L. Rev. 1193, 1270-71 (2003),
http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/1241.
14
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researchers adjusted his analysis to account for this oversight, the results became
statistically insignificant.19
While this Court need not arbitrate the accuracy of Lott’s research compared
to the State’s evidence, the fact that Lott’s research has been repeatedly discredited
over well-intentioned gun carriers, especially in more populated areas where they
are more likely to be spotted. See Cal. Penal Code §§ 25850, 17030. When
unrestricted, open carry creates potentially deadly confusion because the intentions
of gun carriers, even if they are innocent, are unknown to the public and law
enforcement.
To the hapless citizens who happen upon individuals carrying visible guns in
public or the police officers called to investigate, such confusion may be fatal. In
19
See Mark Duggan, More Guns, More Crime, 109 J. Pol. Econ. 1086, 1109–10
(2001),
https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/dranove/htm/dranove/coursepages/
Mgmt%20469/guns.pdf.
15
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Pub. Safety, Bill Analysis, A.B. 144 (Portantino), 2011-2012 Sess., at N (Cal.
Former Covina Chief of Police Kim Raney warned against the inherent risks
E.R. 2122 (Expert Witness Report); see also A.B. 144 Bill Analysis, at M-N.
authority to carry openly means that displaying visible firearms falls short of that
requirement.20
20
Geoffrey Corn, Open-carry opens up series of constitutional issues for cops, The
Hill (Sept. 23, 2016), https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/civil-rights/297480-
why-police-interactions-in-open-carry-states-are-so.
16
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Potentially deadly confusion may arise not only in direct response to open-
carry calls, but in response to any incident where open carriers are present. In
responding to an active shooter in July 2016, the Dallas Police Chief explained it
best: “We don’t know who the good guy is versus the bad guy when everyone
starts shooting.” 21 Up to thirty civilians were carrying rifles in the area, but only
one of them was the perpetrator. In the time it took to separate the “good guys
with guns” from the bad, twelve officers were shot, five of them fatally.
Colorado Springs called 911 on a Saturday morning after spotting her neighbor
investigate, the dispatcher explained that such conduct was perfectly legal under
Colorado’s permissive open-carry laws. Only when the neighbor began shooting
did his conduct become unlawful, and by then it was too late: before police
ultimately did arrive, the neighbor killed a bicyclist and father of two, as well as
two others.
21
Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Dallas police chief: Open carry makes things confusing
during mass shootings, Los Angeles Times (July 11, 2016),
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-dallas-chief-20160711-snap-story.html.
22
Jesse Paul, Open carry becomes focus after Colorado Springs shooting rampage,
the Denver Post (Nov. 3, 2015), http://www.denverpost.com/2015/11/03/open-
carry-becomes-focus-after-colorado-springs-shooting-rampage/.
17
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Even when open-carry incidents do not end in shoot-outs, the confusion they
cause poses a grave threat to public safety because open-carry calls siphon off
limited law enforcement resources. If not for the calls, law enforcement could
expend its finite resources protecting the public from other deadly hazards.
dealing with under-staffing and cut backs . . . preventing them from protecting the
reports of lawful carrying citizens in more populated areas. For example, ten days
more than 65 residents called to report a man with a rifle walking around Portland,
Maine.23 Open carry is permitted in Maine, so the officers responding to the call
could not inspect the man’s weapon or even require him to identify himself.
Instead, the officers wasted resources keeping him under surveillance for nearly
another permissive open-carry state. With rifles flung over their shoulders, two
23
Dennis Hoey, Man with assault rifle prompts flurry of police calls in Portland,
Portland Press Herald (December 24, 2012),
http://www.pressherald.com/2012/12/24/man-with-gun-attracts-attention-on-back-
cove-trail/.
18
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Incidents like this, a Portland police sergeant remarked, “take[] resources away
from potentially more serious incidents.” That risk is all the more grave because
“[a]nyone walking around with a visible firearm is going to generate calls from
These, unfortunately, are not isolated incidents. Across the country, in states
with laws more permissive than California’s, individuals carrying openly visible
guns have led alarmed grocery shoppers to flee stores and call 911,25 sown panic at
24
Gun rights walk in Portland spurs 911 calls, lockdown, The Columbian (Jan. 10,
2013), http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/jan/10/gun-rights-walk-spurs-911-
calls-lockdown/.
25
Sandy Hausman, Unconcealed Guns Can Unsettle, But They're Often Legal,
NPR (Jan. 30, 2013), https://www.npr.org/2013/01/30/170652470/unconcealed-
guns-can-unsettle-but-theyre-often-legal.
26
Man with gun causes scare during children's baseball game, WSB-TV (Apr. 24,
2014), https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/man-gun-causes-scare-during-childrens-
baseball-gam/137105583.
27
Bill Laitner, Open-carry activist speaks out after school lockdown scare, Detroit
Free Press (Mar. 12, 2015),
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/03/12/gun-rights-open-
carry-michigan-school-property/70249066/.
19
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For all the deadly confusion caused by open carry, it should come as no
surprise that California’s open-carry laws have been “actively supported by law
Lindsey, A.B. 1591, Bill Memorandum to Governor Reagan, at 1 (July 28, 1967).
More than forty years after California’s first law restricting the carry of loaded,
visible firearms, law enforcement continues to register their support for further
restrictions on open carry. A.B. 144 Bill Analysis, at A (noting support from
California).
the Young panel’s holding that “the right to carry a firearm openly for self-defense
falls within the core of the Second Amendment.” 896 F.3d at 1070. Contrary to
measures” falling outside the Second Amendment’s historical scope. Jackson, 746
F.3d at 960.
20
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evidence” of longstanding public carry regulations. See id. at 960. This Court has
already recognized as much, finding that some of the earliest firearm regulations in
America prohibited the public carry of arms entirely, whether concealed or open.
See Peruta v. Cty. of San Diego, 824 F.3d 919, 931 (9th Cir. 2016) (en banc). New
research since then has only confirmed the limited scope of the right to “bear
arms.” Analyzing over 100,000 founding-era sources, researchers found that the
“overwhelming majority of instances” in which the phrase “bear arms” was used
involved a military context, not civilians carrying guns for self-defense in public.28
even more modest than other, more stringent restrictions that could pass
emergencies and in remote areas and may obtain concealed-carry permits with
good cause. See Heller, 554 U.S. at 626 (“the majority of the 19th-century courts
to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were
28
Josh Blackman & James C. Phillips, Corpus Linguistics and the Second
Amendment, Harv. L. Rev. Blog (Aug. 7, 2018),
https://blog.harvardlawreview.org/corpus-linguistics-and-the-second-amendment/.
21
Case: 18-55717, 11/27/2018, ID: 11100603, DktEntry: 37, Page 30 of 32
CONCLUSION
Through its public-carry laws and restrictions on open carry, California has
sought to promote public safety by reducing gun violence and potentially deadly
that this objective would be achieved less effectively in the laws’ absence, and
intermediate scrutiny. For these reasons, California’s laws are constitutional and
should be upheld.
s/ Simon Frankel
SIMON J. FRANKEL
MATTHEW Q. VERDIN
COVINGTON & BURLING LLP
One Front Street, 35th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94111
(415) 591-6000
HANNAH SHEARER
GIFFORDS LAW CENTER TO
PREVENT GUN VIOLENCE
268 Bush St. # 555
San Francisco, CA 94104
(415) 433-2062
J. ADAM SKAGGS
GIFFORDS LAW CENTER TO
PREVENT GUN VIOLENCE
223 West 38th St. # 90
New York, NY 10018
(917) 680-3473
CERTIFICATE OF COMPLIANCE
Appellate Procedure 29(a)(5) and 32(a)(7)(B) and Ninth Circuit Rule 32-1 because
this brief contains 4,662 words, excluding the portions exempted by Federal Rule
Roman font.
s/ Simon Frankel
SIMON J. FRANKEL
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
document with the Clerk of the Court of the United States Court of Appeals for the
Ninth Circuit using the appellate CM/ECF system. I certify that all participants in
this case are registered CM/ECF users and that service will be accomplished by the
s/ Simon Frankel
SIMON J. FRANKEL