Most of us grew up with stories about earthquakes in California. At some point, you may have heard that a big piece of it might fall into the ocean because of where the fault lines are. Fifty years later, the English Standard has not been replaced by metric. But California still has earthquakes, and not all of them are tectonic. Three days ago, the court told the Land of Almonds and Plastic Surgery that it can no longer limit how many firearms a person can buy each month (while the case slithers through the court system). California’s One Gun a Month Rule (OGM) has been blocked.
The statute requires firearm dealers to post signs stating in part, “No person shall make an application to purchase more than one handgun or semiautomatic centerfire rifle within any 30-day period and no delivery shall be made to any person who has made an application to purchase more than one handgun or semiautomatic centerfire rifle within any 30-day period.”
The block is permanent, so gun dealers will no longer have to enforce the limitation, but what struck me as more interesting were the court’s remarks on why the OMG was likely unconstitutional.
“The Supreme Court has said that for Second Amendment cases, we can look by analogy to other rights that citizens have, including First Amendment rights, etc. It would be absurd to think that a government could say you can only buy one book a month, because we want to make sure that you really understand the books that you read, or you can only attend one protest a month, because there are some societal drawbacks to having protests, and so we want to kind of space those out,” Forrest said during the hearing.
“So if we conclude that you have a right to bear arms, and we conclude that that’s not the right to bear an arm, but could be plural … what is the basis in the law anywhere for the idea that you could say to someone, yes, you have this right, but we’re going to control how frequently or how often you get to exercise it?” she added.
So, you can choose to exercise your right to keep and bear “arm,” but if you want to bear more than one, Gavin Newsom and his clown college of unconstitutional misfits – the state legislature – can’t say when or how often.
Owens presented the hypothetical of a liquor store owner being told by a gang to pay them protection or face trouble. “So I say, ‘boy, I better have a gun in my store. I need to have a gun in my house, and I don’t have any firearms.’ Under the state of California’s rule, I could buy a gun to protect my store or my house, but I couldn’t buy one for each, correct, and I’d have to wait 30 days,” he said.
“That’s right, Your Honor. You would have to wait 30 days from when you purchased your first firearm to getting a second one,” Jerry Yen, an attorney with Bonta’s office, said.
“So with that understanding, if the core right the Second Amendment is trying to protect a self defense,” Owens said, “then it seems to me that the law here is impeding that core.”
That’s an interesting analogy as no AG’s office lawyer from the not-so-golden state is ever going to admit that there is an individual right to self-defense, but recent Supreme Court rulings are making it hard on the proglodytes to disarm AmericansBut they never give up, those gun grabbers, and they’ll keep at it while they wait for the Hig Court winds to change because there are no rights beyond their reach – which should make even Democrats nervous.
GraniteGrok.com is a reader-supported endeavor, and we can’t continue without your support. Please consider a monthly subscription donation. It goes a long way to helping offset the rising cost of everything. One-time donations are also always welcome. If you would like to donate by check, email me at steve@granitegrok.com.
