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Everytown For Gun Safety Urges Federal Court to Uphold California’s Sensible Public Carry Gun Laws

9.19.2017

NEW YORK – Everytown for Gun Safety, the country’s largest gun violence prevention organization, filed papers urging the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California to uphold California public carry gun laws challenged in Flanagan v. Becerra, a case backed by the National Rifle Association. Everytown’s filing, submitted Monday and available here, draws on Everytown’s extensive research into the history of firearms laws to show California’s public carry system is consistent with hundreds of years of English and American weapons regulation.

The issues before the court in Flanagan v. Becerra are related to the issues in Peruta v. San Diego, in which the Ninth Circuit upheld San Diego’s requirement that a member of the public needs a good cause to carry a concealed handgun in public. In June, the United States Supreme Court said it would not review the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in that case, leaving San Diego’s permitting standards intact.

STATEMENT FROM ERIC TIRSCHWELL, LITIGATION DIRECTOR FOR EVERYTOWN FOR GUN SAFETY:

“California’s public carry laws are consistent with the Second Amendment and with laws enacted throughout American history. We urge the court to uphold this important public safety law.”

Description of Case

Flanagan v. Becerra is a challenge to California’s system of regulating the carrying of firearms in public, which people can do in either an open or concealed manner. California law currently allows for the issuance of concealed carry permits to those with “good cause” and prohibits the open carrying of firearms in populated areas, while allowing open carry with a license in rural counties and without a license in unpopulated areas.

California’s system was challenged by several plaintiffs organized by the California Rifle and Pistol Association, the National Rifle Association’s California affiliate. The challenge is meant to answer the questions left open by the Ninth Circuit’s en banc decision in Peruta v. County of San Diego, which found California’s concealed carry licensing system, as implemented by San Diego County, does not raise a Second Amendment issue because there is no right to carry concealed weapons.