Good Intentions, Bad Likely Results

Good Intentions, Bad Likely Results

Winds of Change reports on a Torrance, California person who has decided to sue Torrance for the fact that, as a matter of long-standing policy, it does not issue concealed weapon permits. This suit is a mistake for the following reasons:

1. While the courts have sometimes required California sheriffs and police chiefs to issue carry permits under equal protection claims, they have taken a very demanding view of "equal protection." A friend of mine with extensive experience litigating such suits there tells me that two jewelers with similar exposures to hazard have had different results because one of them was a few blocks away from the other--and the other had a worse neighborhood.

2. There is a chance that we will in the next few years be able to make a case like this work in federal court, but first we need the Supreme Court to recognize that the Second Amendment protects an individual right, then win a suit in which the Supreme Court recognizes that the Second Amendment applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. In the meantime, such a suit is more likely to waste money and give us a bad precedent on the books.

Anyone who continues to live in California and believes that they should be able to defend themselves from criminal attack outside their home must really love the weather. I have to go back to Los Angeles for a family reunion (my wife's family) at the end of June--and I am not looking forward to it for exactly that reason.