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RENO MAY, et al., v. ROBERT BONTA, in his official capacity as Attorney General of the
State of California (May v. Bonta)
This is a huge 2A victory. Federal judge Cormac Carney entered a preliminary injunction enjoining virtually all of California’s “sensitive places” laws from being enforced on the grounds that they violate the Second Amendment.
Judge Carney says the Second Amendment provides a fundamental constitutional right for law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms for self-defense. The judge is correct that there are no historical analogue laws with the particular laws litigated in this case at the time of the founding in the early eighteenth century.
The 3 places designated as “sensitive places” per the Bruen decision were designated as such because the government provides comprehensive security in all three. They are:
- · Court Houses
- · Legislative Assemblies
- · Polling places
Schools, at the time of the founding, were not gun free zones. Adults were allowed to carry guns but students might well have been restricted from carrying guns by adults because of the “loco parentis” doctrine.
Likewise there were no laws at the time of the founding against guns in hospitals and medical facilities.
I agree it’s simply absurd that people can’t carry a gun in a facility that serves alcohol when at the time of the founding the entire American revolution was really planned in taverns like Sam Adams taverns in Boston and Francis tavern in New York City.
The assumption was that people would bring their guns into places like churches due to fear of an Indian attack. However, public transportation can regulate the absence of guns on their private property because they, unlike governments, are not restricted by the Second Amendment.
I suspect the inconsistencies and governmental infringements evolving from attempts by governments to utilize the Bruen examples of “sensitive places” to designate as many gun-free zones as possible will evaporate when SCOTUS revisits the issue.