California's open carry ban unconstitutional, appeals court rules

Judge Lawrence VanDyke, a Trump appointee, said in the 2-1 decision that the state law could not stand under the Supreme Court’s 2022 landmark gun rights ruling.

A U.S. appeals court on Friday ruled that California's ban on openly carrying firearms in most parts of the state was unconstitutional.

A panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided 2-1 with a gun owner in ruling that the state’s prohibition against open carry in counties with more than 200,000 people violated U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

About 95% of the population in California, which has had some of the nation’s strictest gun-control laws, live in counties of that size.

U.S. Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke, who was appointed by Republican President Donald Trump, said the Democratic-led state’s law could not stand under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 landmark gun rights ruling.

That decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, was issued by the court’s 6-3 conservative super-majority and established a new legal test for firearms restrictions. The test said they must be “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”