California law forbids the carrying of firearms in public places without a license and provides that the issuance of such a license requires “good cause.” San Diego County, as part of its implementation of that law, has set a number of restrictive policies on what it will consider good cause, which must be exceptional circumstances (“distinguish[ed]… from the mainstream”), and it specifies that concern for “one’s personal safety alone is not considered good cause.”
That’s a policy in considerable tension with the language of the Second Amendment, which protects individuals’ right not only to “keep” arms, but also to “bear” them. What does the verb “bear” mean in this context? That has given rise to considerable dispute, and some federal courts, such as the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, appear to believe that it provides very little protection for individuals’ right to possess guns outside the home. In a case last year by the name of Drake v. Filko – now the subject of a certiorari petition to the Supreme Court, as Ilya explained yesterday – the Third Circuit upheld a regulatory regime under which “virtually nobody in New Jersey can use a handgun to defend themselves outside their home.”
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/ninth-circuit-recognizes-right-bear-not-just-keep-arms
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