California's COVID Gun Store Shutdowns Ruled Illegal

[bobsguns]

Story

Quote

Officials in Los Angeles and Ventura counties had separately won lower court decisions saying gun stores were not exempt from broader shutdown orders aimed at limiting the spread of the coronavirus early in the pandemic.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected both lower court rulings.

Perhaps the most surprising quote of all:

Quote

The Second Amendment "means nothing if the government can prohibit all persons from acquiring any firearm or ammunition," Judge Lawrence VanDyke wrote. "But that's what happened in this case."

Because buyers can obtain guns only by personally going to gun stores in California, Ventura County's 48-day closure of gun shops, ammunition shops and firing ranges "wholly prevented law-abiding citizens in the County from realizing their right to keep and bear arms," he wrote.

This, he noted, while bike shops were among those allowed to remain open as essential businesses.

 

So CA officials decided bike shops were "essential" but protecting one's home & family weren't? Not to mention the mail-order ban on shipping ammo to private individuals? In short, they hamstrung decent law abiding citizens from replenishing their ammo as well as buying any sort of firearm. Clearly the officials valued thugs lives more than honest citizens' lives, IMO. 

This is a rare victory for gun owners in CA, IMO. I also note it took an appeals court to make the correct decision rather than a local court, probably with elected judges. 

[Frog4aday]

This is a good ruling. Thanks for passing it along. For now, the courts still seem to be working as designed. Hoping that continues.