Gun Laws & Legislation

Fully Loaded Supreme Court Soon To Reveal If Justices Will Hear Concealed Carry Case

(Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)

Kerry Picket Political Reporter
Font Size:

WASHINGTON—If the Supreme Court becomes the final arbiter of a California concealed carry case, their final decision could represent the court’s decision on potential Second Amendment cases in the near future. With Neil Gorsuch sworn in Monday as the 9th justice to the Supreme Court, gun rights advocates hope he follows in the tradition of the late Justice Antonin Scalia when it comes to Second Amendment rights.

During the Gorsuch nomination in the Senate, the National Rifle Association dropped $1 million into an ad buy supporting the Colorado judge to the court, in a bet that he, once a clerk of Justice Kennedy, would rule in favor of Second Amendment rights cases.

“Four Supreme Court justices believe you have a right to defend yourself with a gun,” the TV ad’s voiceover said, referencing Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy.

“Four do not,” the narrator goes on, implying liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. “The men and women of the NRA will not let anti-gun elites strip away our rights or our freedom.”

Back in January, the NRA filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to hear the California-based case from Peruta v. San Diego. The case case is one of five that the high court will decide in coming days as to whether it will take up after the 9th circuit ruled in favor of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department over California resident and gun owner Edward Peruta.

Peruta challenged his county’s rejection of a request for a concealed carry permit that would allow him to carry concealed firearm outside of his residence. However, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department restricts concealed carry permits to anyone who can prove they have a particular need for self-defense for a specific threat.

“The whole point of the Sheriff’s policy is to confine concealed-carry licenses to a very narrow subset of law-abiding residents,” Peruta’s attorneys wrote. “And because California law prohibits openly carrying a handgun outside the home, the result is that the typical law-abiding resident cannot bear a handgun for self-defense outside the home at all.”

Additionally, Congress could be voting on national concealed carry legislation later this year, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn told The Daily Caller in late March. Cornyn is the lead sponsor of such legislation (S.446) in the upper chamber.

“Well you know we got so much going on now it’s just it seems like there’s not much room, but my hope is later this year we can get it teed up and, of course, depending on when the House takes their version of that will help move it along, but I’m hoping sometime this year,” Cornyn said. The House version (H.R. 38) of the concealed carry bill was introduced by North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson in January.

Republicans still lack 60 votes to stop debate on any legislation and go forward to a final vote, but Cornyn thinks that voters in blue states with concealed carry could help pressure certain Democratic members to support the legislation.

“Well, right now, [Democrats] are pretty much in a lockdown mode, but I think there are a number of them–I mean, almost I think virtually every state has some sort of license to carry law,” Cornyn said.

He added, “Do you know to operate a driver’s license, if you’ve got a driver’s license in one state you can drive in 50 states subject to the laws of those states? So that’s all this would do. And since they all have some form of license to carry, I don’t see it as a big leap.”

Should the legislation find its way past the Senate, lawsuits from states with strict gun control laws are likely. The New Jersey Democratic legislature already filed a lawsuit against its Republican Gov. Chris Christie this month for loosening up regulations in his state to make it easier for eligible residents to qualify for concealed carry permits.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman told The Trace back in January that a federal national concealed carry law would be a “violation of state’s laws.”

“The lowest-common-denominator approach proposed by this bill would undermine the core principles of federalism, the traditional police powers of state governments, and the safety of law enforcement officers across the country,” New York Attorney General Eric said in an email statement. “It’s absolutely unacceptable for the federal government to dictate that someone can carry a concealed, loaded gun within a state’s border, in violation of that state’s laws.”

Follow Kerry on Twitter

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel