The U.S. Court of Appeals of the 9th Circuit ruled on Wednesday the Second Amendment does not grant the right to bear arms openly or concealed carry in public.
Within the court’s ruling on George Young Jr. v. Hawaii, they said, “There is no right to carry arms openly in public; nor is any such right within the scope of the Second Amendment.”
The court’s jurisdiction extends to Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. It also extends to the territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
This lawsuit was presented in 2011 when George Young, a Hawaiian citizen, and a Vietnam Veteran, was denied twice when he applied for a gun permit. Young’s reason for applying was cited as self-defense.
Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain wrote the dissent supported by Judges Consuelo Callahan, Sandra Ikuta, and Ryan Nelson.
He wrote, “The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees ‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms.’ Today, a majority of our court has decided that the Second Amendment does not mean what it says. Instead, the majority holds that while the Second Amendment may guarantee the right to keep a firearm for self-defense within one’s home, it provides no right whatsoever to bear—i.e., to carry—that same firearm for self-defense in any other place…. We now become the first and only court of appeals to hold that public carry falls entirely outside the scope of the Amendment’s protections.”
O’Scannlain also wrote the decision was extreme and it “reduces the right to ‘bear Arms’ to a mere inkblot.”