Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
On February 9th, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments for two Second Amendment cases. In Jeff Silvester v. Kamala Harris, the [lower] District Court ruled against the California statute requiring a waiting period for a firearm purchase.
In the second case, Tracy Rifle & Pistol LLC. v. Harris, the lower court struck down the California law forbidding guns stores from advertising handguns with the image of, wait for it, a handgun. Let’s take a closer look . . .
The District Court ruling a firearms purchase waiting period ban unconstitutional is simple common sense. Mr. Silvester owned a gun. He’d already passed a background check. How can there be any significant government interest in forcing a gun owner to wait an additional 10 days to take possession of the firearm?
The argument that the 10-day delay is a “cooling off” period is patently ridiculous, again, given that the purchaser has legal access to other firearms. “There is no government public safety interest in a waiting period if you already own a gun and have gone through a background check,” Second Amendment Foundation founder Alan Gottlieb told FoxNews.com. “This is clearly only about a right delayed being a right denied.”
[Audio file oral argument Jeff Silvester v. Kamala Harris]
Eugene Volokh argued the Tracy Rifle & Pistol case. The idea that the State of California should be able to ban advertising to “protect” adult citizens violates the First Amendment, which protects Americans from government infringement on their right to free speech. Further, the ban was designed to chill the exercise of the Second Amendment protected right to keep and bear arms. It’s hard to see how the state can argue in favor of this, but try they do, mostly through obfuscation.
[Audio file link to oral argument Tracy Rifle and Pistol LLC v. Kamala Harris]
The Ninth Circuit is notoriously activist and statist. Even so, it’s hard to see how they could rule in favor of California laws that so clearly violate their residents’ gun and free speech rights. Still, watch this space.
©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch