From the organizers of the NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund National Firearms Law Seminar:
The deadline has passed for a judge to ask for en banc sua sponte. No judge called for it. The only possibilities for en banc review are AG Harris’ Motion to Intervene and a request from Yolo County in the Richardson case. The Yolo County Sheriff’s deadline is March 19th.
We will see what happens.
In the meantime, feel free to sign up for the Law Seminar if you plan to be in Indy for the NRA Annual Meeting and you’re interested in learning details about firearms law.
Given that no judge has requested it, does that mean they’re less likely to grant such a request, or are they simply waiting for the Motion To Intervene?
If the decision in the Hawaii case goes as expected, wouldn’t that also be a possible “opportunity” for Hawaii to request an en banc review of their decision, and as it probably relies on Peruta, a review of Peruta?
But the knowledge that none of the judges in the 9th Circuit was even willing to request a vote on en banc review is heartening. Maybe they either agree with, or cannot effectively dispute Peruta?
Congratulations to Calguns, NRA and SAF for the work they have been doing to secure everyone’s civil rights. It has taken a lot of time and resources, but they are succeeding.
And thank you, Bitter and Sebastian, for your keeping us informed!
“But the knowledge that none of the judges in the 9th Circuit was even willing to request a vote on en banc review is heartening. Maybe they either agree with, or cannot effectively dispute Peruta?”
Pretty amazing. Maybe there is good reason to hope after all.
I was afraid the clock reset when the court stayed their decision when AG Harris made her motion on the 28th.
I am not a lawyer, but as I understand it, Baker is a very different case than Peruta, both a facial challenge to HI law, and an as applied challenge to the issuing authority policy. The decision in Baker will probably cite Peruta, but it will have its own reasoning.
Also, an en banc appeal in Baker cannot alter or reverse Peruta. Only an appeal of Peruta can do that.
I don’t see this as heartening, at all. It’s just the machine turning as normal. If the AG is allowed to intervene, then no judge would have to ask on their own.
The original deadline for en banc has been extended. It’s still a real option, and the court is probably disposed to letting the state intervene despite their previous cries that no state law was impacted by the case. Nobody knows for sure, but the general feeling is that if the court lets the AG into the case, then the court would probably vote for an en banc review.
It’s still a long road and the risk of getting this thing set aside is still quite high.
Sorry to be the cold water. I will say I am optimistic about what Peruta means, regardless of what happens in the next few weeks. Even set aside, some words are hard to erase. The Ninth would have to address the ruling’s historical/Heller-esque approach, and that could prove interesting. They are kinda boxed in, given that the Peruta majority specifically called out the cases used in their analysis as the same ones that the Supreme Court used in theirs, and then went further in saying the cases used by the dissent (and opposing views, in general) are the same one the Supreme Court either avoided, or even regarded as incorrect.
Like I said, interesting all around.
Thanks for the update, I’ve been trying without much success to find that specific information. As a San Diego County resident this case is particularly important to me.
AG Harris is very probably plugged into the brain of the anti-gun movement, the LCAV, since they are practically neighbors. So from her attempt to appeal it seems (unlike the Illinois case) the anti-gunners have decided to risk Supreme Court review of gun-rights over the issue of carry outside the home.
Even so I doubt Harris has standing to appeal, therefore the best chance for the anti-gunners now is appeal by the Yolo County Sheriff. How he responds will be very interesting. Next stop, March 19th.
If they lose Cali the only places of meaningful population left with really restrictive “may-issue” are New York -City-, Boston, DC, and the state of NJ.
All the other states are tiny, and/or have counties that are “will-issue” in practice. They lose the population centers in Cali like they lost Chicago and they will have a hard time claiming anything resembling “popular support” for effective “no issue” based on the maps.
The “Concealed Carry over time” map will appear solid red at scale, and we can do county by county ones for the hold-out states now just names hovering in the Atlantic.
Thanks for the update and the link to the CLE. I see speakers include Halbrook and Kopel – we can look forward to current updates from them on all of these cases. Also the Zombology guy, and the NRA’s in house lawyers, and an Indiana supreme court justice.
The law seminar really is a great event, especially for attorneys who may want/need some CLE credits.
The other big issue is how Peruta affects the likelihood that SCOTUS will grant cert in Drake (3d Cir).
If the Peruta opinion is still standing by the time SCOTUS votes on the Drake petition, that is as “hard” a circuit split as you could ask for between the Ninth Circuit and the 2/3/4 circuits. This kind of situation often prompts SCOTUS to grant review even when they might prefer not to wade in.
Drake would be an excellent vehicle for the gun rights side; the truly dismissive and sloppy panel opinion would be hard to defend.
It could also be that the main pressure for this (at least in the CA case) is coming solely from the anti-gun groups, who feel that if they don’t fight it, regardless of the eventual outcome, then they may as well just pack up and go home.
I think the Northeast cases are faced by much more determined local governance.
Apart from pushing an AWB (which, given the naked form of many of those laws of recent times, I couldn’t see standing up in SCOTUS), the anti-gun groups must realize by now that they’ve lost or are about to lose the main two planks they hoped to leverage the end of gun ownership on; Bans on keeping at home, and on carry in public.
Somehow I don’t think even AWBs are going to be any consolation for them.
The more I think about it, the more I agree with Sebastian and Bane (among others) that shall-issue, even overly restrictive at first, is -the- key to gun rights.
Even in a state with a mag cap ban, when you have hundreds of thousands of normal people, friends and neighbors of even non-carriers, not being threats with 10 rounds, arguing they will be psychos with 15 becomes harder. If they have semi-auto pistols and aren’t mowing down folks the “semi = assault weapon” is a harder sell.
Non-discretionary legal carry personalizes the issue for folks who otherwise might reflexively accept anti-gun “what-ifs.”
Absolutely agree. Getting that foot in the door is huge. We’ve made such progress because of the slow march of CCW permits. Yes, we should even need a permit, and yes a lot them can be onerous, but it gives us a group of people who now have a vested interest in making things easier.