Californias AB144 attempts to ban Unloaded Open Carry (aka-"UOC)"

[maestro pistolero]

A fellow Calgunner and TFL member broke TFL protocol earlier by posting this link to his fine examiner.com article without comment. Accordingly the thread was closed. Let me see if I can do this the right way.

For those who may not know, the California legislature is trying again to ban unloaded carry of firearms after a failed attempt in the last term.

Set aside for the moment that the 2A protects the right to carry a functional firearm for immediate use for self defense, and let's reserve for later the arguments that unloaded carry would IN NO WAY meet the standards of the Heller court (once codified to exist outside the home.)

The California legislature, not content to merely eviscerate the right by requiring self defense arms to be unloaded, now wishes to banish them completely from any public place.

This time the California legislature is doing it in spite of new case law (including Peruta vs Gore) that relies (albeit weakly) on unloaded carry as the means to satisfy the right, and relies upon the fact that unloaded carry is permissible to deny CCW licensing with self-defense as good cause.

If you have time to read the whole thing, it does a pretty good job of explaining the near schizophrenic atmosphere of disfunction that exists in the State Government and not just with regards to stupid gun laws. Here's an excerpt from the article:

. . . .Then, there is AB 144, the controversial Open Carry ban bill authored by Assemblyman Anthony Portantino. After winding its way through the State Assembly, Portantino continued in his attempt to infringe on every law-abiding Californian's basic, fundamental, and enumerated civil rights by pushing his unconstitutional bill in front of the State Senate Public Safety Committee on Tuesday, June 7, 2011 (1:02:00).

Despite being repeatedly, definitively, and publicly proven wrong, Assemblyman Portantino continues to sell AB 144 by mischaracterizing the bill as a "loophole" in California law and also by uttering the hackneyed tag line, "You do not need a weapon to buy a cheeseburger or a cup of coffee."

In addition, Portantino's repeated assertion that a ban on Open Carry in the Golden State does not violate every law-abiding Californian's 2nd Amendment Rights is not reflective of the facts. According to not only one but rather two federal court rulings, Unloaded Open Carry in California does constitute every common, law-abiding Californian's individual 2nd Amendment Right. For instance, in Peruta vs. County of San Diego, Chief Federal Judge Irma Gonzales states,

Although Plaintiffs have elected not to challenge section 12031, focusing instead on concealed carry pursuant to section 12050, the validity and open carry restrictions of section 12031 are relevant and important here. The Heller Court relied on 19th-century cases upholding concealed weapons bans, but in each case, the court upheld the ban because alternative forms of carrying arms were available.

http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-i...cal-corruption

Continue reading on Examiner.com AB 144--A Paradigm Of California’s Disgraced Political Culture - Oakland Gun Rights | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-i...#ixzz1OwvK5mAp

[Uncle Buck]

Thanks maestro pistolero. My computer is broken and I can not open attached links. Because of that....

How will this affect the carrying of unloaded weapons going to/from a range or hunting trip? I have seen laws written that mean one thing, but once passed, are used entirely different from what was intended.

[maestro pistolero]

Not sure. But Calguns would be an excellent place to search for that info. I know that it has been discussed recently.