By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
The Second Amendment Foundation and several other gun rights groups have filed a federal lawsuit challenging a new California “sensitive places” statute which makes virtually every public place in the state off-limits to legal concealed carry. The case is known as May v. Bonta.
According to SAF, they are joined in this case by Gun Owners of America, Gun Owners Foundation, Gun Owners of California, the California Rifle & Pistol Association (CRPA) and eleven private citizens, including Sonoma County resident Reno May, for whom the case is named. They are represented by attorneys C.D. Michel, Sean A. Brady and Konstadinos T. Moros at Michel & Associates in Long Beach, and Donald Kilmer, Law Offices of Don Kilmer, Caldwell, Idaho.
The new law, known as “SB2” forbids then carrying of firearms even by legally-licensed citizens in any areas designated “sensitive places.” Under the new law, most public places are now designated to be “sensitive.”
“SB 2 is designed to frustrate and ultimately discourage individuals from exercising their right to bear arms by creating a patchwork of locations where Second Amendment rights may, or may not, be exercised,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut, who is a practicing attorney. “That is not how constitutional rights work. SAF is happy to add California to the list of states that we have sued for adopting so-called ‘Bruen Response Bills’ that make it impractical, if not impossible, for people to exercise their rights by essentially making carry permits useless.”
In the aftermath of the 2022 Supreme Court ruling in Bruen, California and other states—notably New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Maryland—scrambled to pass laws aimed deliberately at skirting around the guidelines set down in the Bruen case regarding Second Amendment restrictions.
“Under SB 2,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “legally armed California citizens might be able to carry on some streets and sidewalks, and in a few private businesses that post signs allowing legal carry on their premises. Overall, however, SB 2 is a massive prohibition on legal carry throughout the Golden State, which runs counter to what the U.S. Supreme Court said in its Bruen ruling last year, and which Gov. Gavin Newsom and anti-gun-rights state lawmakers are desperately trying to get around.”
In a news release, CRPA stated, “SB 2 is a vindictive legislative response designed to get around the Supreme Court’s historic Bruen decision from 2022. Bruen held that a permit to carry a firearm in public to defend yourself and your family is a right, not a privilege. As a result, California, and other states that previously limited access to these permits, had to start issuing them, and the number of permit holders in California has greatly increased.
“The Bruen decision also clarifies that governments cannot limit the usefulness of these permits by over-designating places as ‘sensitive,’ where carrying a firearm, even with a permit, would be prohibited,” CRPA continued. “Governor Newsom and the anti-gun-owner legislators who voted for this law are trying to do exactly that. They know this bill will only affect lawful gun owners because they are the only ones who pass the qualification process to get a permit.
“SB 2 does nothing to stop gun violence by criminals,” the group said. “And in fact, data from several states demonstrates that Americans with concealed carry permits commit crimes at extraordinarily low rates, as the lawsuit explains. Recently, a Hawaii district court relied in part on this same data, which was presented to it by some of the same associations now challenging SB 2, and concluded that Hawaii’s similar law could be enjoined.
“Designating so many places as gun-free zones is a retaliatory tactic coordinated by well-financed national gun control advocacy groups that is being used in states hostile to gun ownership to make the right to defend yourself in public useless,” CRPA declared.
