California once again is being sued for trying to prevent individuals from exercising their Second Amendment Rights.
Already facing cases involving store signs, gun registration, waiting periods, vagueness in its gun laws, bans on weapons of a certain size, handguns, assault weapons and more, the state now is being sued by the Second Amendment Foundation and four other rights groups.
The groups charges the state is preventing individuals from possessing guns after their previous convictions are set aside.
Joining SAF are the Firearms Policy Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, the Madison Society Foundation and the Calguns Foundation.
They are supporting individual plaintiffs Paul McKinley Stewart and Chad Linton, who contend that non-violent felony convictions years ago in other states have been set aside or vacated, yet California refuses to allow them to purchase firearms.
The complaint was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Named as defendants are California Attorney General Xavier Becerra; Martin Horan, the director of the state Department of Justice, Bureau of Firearms; and Deputy Attorney General Robert Wilson.
“SAF took an interest in this case for the specific reason that California once again is trying to prevent or disqualify as many citizens as possible from exercising their Second Amendment rights,” said SAF founder Alan M. Gottlieb. “There doesn’t appear to be any other reason for the state to not recognize rights restorations to either Linton or Stewart even though their rights have been restored by courts in Arizona and Washington.”
George M. Lee, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said California “doesn’t get to pick and choose which judgments of other states it will honor, and which it will ignore, because it doesn’t approve of firearms ownership.”
“Granting full faith and credit to other court judgments is part of the bargain of being one of these United States.”
The cases involving both individual plaintiffs occurred decades ago and have been cleared by state courts. Both plaintiffs have been good citizens in their respective California communities, SAF said.
“This is just another example of California’s animosity toward the Second Amendment,” Gottlieb said.
In September, a federal judge ruled against a section of the California Penal Code that prohibited displays of handguns or handgun placards that may be seen from outside a store.
Gottlieb said at the time a state “cannot legislate political correctness at the expense of a fundamental, constitutionally delineated civil right. We were delighted to offer financial support to this case.”
WND reported the state had even banned the word “handgun.”
