• Appeals decision allowing open carry of weapons

The full 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has been asked to rule on Hawaii’s efforts to keep gun owners defenseless once they leave their homes.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit ruled the state cannot bar open carry of firearms.

Alan M. Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, which has filed an friend-of-the-court brief in the case, said the three-judge panel’s ruling was “proper recognition that the right to bear arms extends beyond the confines of someone’s home.”

He noted the case is one of many in recent years that looks at the carrying of firearms in public for personal protection.

“It is of great interest to SAF members and supporters all over the country, because the Second Amendment right to bear arms is no less a right than any of the other rights enumerated and protected by the Bill of Rights,” he said. “After all, nobody would argue that a citizen’s First, Fourth or Fifth Amendment rights stop at the front door of their home.”

SAF is arguing that “the completely arbitrary standard for obtaining either a concealed or open carry license in the County of Hawaii, coupled with the facts that it is both virtually impossible to get either type of carry license in the county of Hawaii” violates the Second Amendment.

“Rights protected specifically by the Constitution cannot be rights in name, alone,” Gottlieb said. “Citizens must be able to exercise their rights or else they exist only on paper. The 9th Circuit panel ruled correctly and our brief contends that the court should decline further review.”

The panel decision that is being challenged by Hawaii already is consistent with both Supreme Court and circuit precedent.

It explains “the Hawaii regulatory scheme for the public carrying of firearms also violates plaintiff’s due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

The 14th Amendment says no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

“The property interests that due process protects extend beyond tangible property and include anything to which a plaintiff has a ‘legitimate claim of entitlement,’” the filing said.

The brief said the public carry of firearms for self-defense “is a liberty interest which entitles the plaintiff to due process protections.”

“The right to armed self-defense in public, which can of course be regulated within constitutional limits, was recognized by the panel majority in this case, by the Seventh Circuit in Moore v. Madigan … by the District of Columbia Circuit in Wrenn v. District of Columbia.

“The right to the public carry of firearms for self-defenes is also a liberty interest apart from the Second Amendment,” the filing states.

SAF pointed out that under Hawaii’s procedures, the typical, law-abiding citizen is “entirely foreclosed from” bearing arms in self-defense.

Source: World Net Daily (wnd.com)