By Bob Walsh
A rather interesting federal lawsuit has just been filed in the formerly great state of California. It involves guns and special treatment for retired law enforcement officers.
Jerry Brown signed SB707 into law at the end of last year. This bill further widened prohibitions against carrying of guns by gun permit holders. It specifically prohibits persons who carry on the basis of a CCW permit from carrying their guns on school grounds, including those persons who might have serious personal safety issues to the point they have a restraining order issued against someone.
Retired peace officers are (still) exempt from the law, meaning retired cops can still carry on school and university grounds.
This really offends the gun control crowd. So they are trying to backdoor it. They have filed action under the 14th Amendment (equal protection clause) asserting that the law as currently written discriminates AGAINST private citizens and in favor of retired peace officers, therefore retired peace officers should also be discriminated against and should lose their rights to carry weapons on school premises.
I have no idea what will happen but somebody is clearly putting some money behind this.
2 comments:
Going back to San Diego this summer. I love visiting the area.
I wouldn't travel in California without a weapon. I do this under the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act. (HR218) It has even been amended to include military police and Coast Guard boarding officers active and retired. There stipulations but they are not much of a hurdle.
I don't think a California state law can trump HR218, but nothing surprises me in California. If any place can fuck something up, it's California.
That's why they are doing, or at least attempting to do, this via a federal lawsuit and not legislation. They know they can't trump federal law with local-state law. They MIGHT be able to do it via a lawsuit. I am betting that it will NOT be successful. In fact it might backfire and the courts might rule that the state has to loosen up on CCW rules. It happened once before in CA when CA outlawed open carry. At any rate it will be something to watch.
Post a Comment