The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has long been known as the Ninth Circus, mostly because it's the one circuit court pretty much guaranteed to make a mockery of constitutional law.
It would be nice to know that had changed, but let's also be real here, there isn't much hope of that, which is unfortunate when both Hawaii and California have so-called carry killer laws on the books and those need to be challenged.
For the record, "carry killer" bills were a response to the Bruen decision that tried to make as many places off-limits for carrying firearms, declaring just about everything as a "sensitive place" and basically making it impossible to carry lawfully. The Ninth Circuit previously smacked down some of those places, but not enough.
Now, they're refusing to revisit the case:
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal issued a pair of decisions Wednesday denying a petition for en banc rehearing of a case that restricts where people can carry firearms in Hawaii and California.
The case centers around laws in Hawaii and California that prohibit the carrying of firearms in most public places. Plaintiffs in both cases sued to stop the application of the laws and won temporary injunctions before the cases were appealed to the Ninth Circuit and consolidated.
In September 2024, a Ninth Circuit panel ruled that California and Hawaii could ban firearms in most places, including beaches, parks, businesses that served alcohol and other sensitive places that have a historical precedent of banning firearms. That was true even when accounting for New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, a 2022 Supreme Court decision that found a range of gun regulations across the country did not have historical backing and were unconstitutional.
Under that new historical-tradition standard, that three-judge panel — consisting of Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Mary Schroeder, a Jimmy Carter appointee, and U.S. Circuit Judge Jennifer Sung, a Joe Biden appointee, as well as Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Susan Graber, a Bill Clinton appointee — concluded that some but not all of the places specified by Hawaii and California fell within a tradition of prohibiting firearms at sensitive places.
The panel did block the bans on carrying guns in certain types of places after finding they weren't similarly backed by historical tradition — including schools, hospitals, banks, public transit and places of worship, as well as private property unless the owner of the property gave clear permission that guns are allowed.
The plaintiffs petitioned for a rehearing of the case en banc, but the Ninth Circuit denied the petition Wednesday, with several judges slamming the original panel’s decision as a possible violation of the Second Amendment to carry a firearm.
Ideally, this would get revisited and these other aspects of the law would be included as unconstitutional, especially since I'm pretty sure the history they used didn't go back nearly far enough under the Bruen decision.
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That means the only way that's going to happen is if the Supreme Court agrees to hear the cases.
As it stands, that's not something anyone should place large bets on.
Yeah, there's a conservative majority on the Court, but it also hasn't really tripped over itself to do gun rights advocates many favors, all things considered. That's especially galling since this started off looking like the most pro-gun court we were ever going to see.
However, they just might take the case, because it appears the Ninth Circus rulings differ from other courts' rulings, which the Supreme Court may want to step in and settle the dispute.
So long as it kills all of these insane restrictions, I'm happy.
