Everytown for Gun Safety Files Brief Urging the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to Uphold California’s Open Carry Restriction

WASHINGTON – Everytown for Gun Safety, the country’s largest gun violence prevention organization, has filed an amicus brief in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit urging the Court to uphold California’s law prohibiting open carry in urban areas. The brief, prepared for Everytown by Gupta Wessler PLLC and filed Friday, urges the Ninth Circuit to uphold California’s regulations on openly carrying firearms and discusses the centuries-old tradition of regulating the carrying of firearms in public.

STATEMENT FROM MARK ANTHONY FRASSETTO, COUNSEL FOR EVERYTOWN FOR GUN SAFETY:

“The state of California has the authority and responsibility to regulate the carrying of firearms in a manner most appropriate to local conditions. California’s law is part of a centuries-old tradition of firearms regulation and is clearly valid under the Second Amendment.”

SUMMARY:

The Nichols case is a Second Amendment challenge to California’s law that regulates the open carrying of firearms. In California people can carry firearms concealed with a license but are prohibited from carrying firearms openly except in rural areas. Charles Nichols is challenging California’s regulation of open carry, claiming that regardless of whether California issues concealed carry permits, he is entitled to carry openly throughout the State, including in his home city of Los Angeles. The United States District Court for the Central District of California rejected Nichols’s claims, and he has now appealed to the Ninth Circuit.

Everytown filed an amicus curiae brief in support of California. The brief presents the long history of regulating the public carrying of firearms and other weapons beginning with the Statute of Northampton in 1328, continuing after the English Bill of Rights in 1689, transferring to America during the colonial period and continuing after the ratification of the Second Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment. Together these sources make clear that Second Amendment rights have always been consistent with responsible regulation of carrying firearms in public.