## Facts

- California generally barred open carry of loaded firearms in public in urbanized areas, subject to narrow exceptions.
- California allowed carrying a concealed handgun in public only with a license requiring, among other things, a showing of “good cause.”
- San Diego County defined “good cause” to require circumstances distinguishing the applicant from “the mainstream” and placing the applicant “in harm’s way,” typically requiring documented, verifiable specific threats.
- The policy stated that a generalized desire to carry a firearm for personal safety was insufficient.
- Individual plaintiffs, described as responsible, law-abiding citizens, sought to carry concealed handguns for self-defense in public but could not satisfy the County’s “good cause” standard; some were denied permits and others claimed applying would be futile.
- Plaintiffs argued that the combined effect of limits on open carry and the County’s restrictive concealed-carry policy left ordinary citizens with no lawful way to carry a handgun in public for self-defense.
- Plaintiffs brought a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action; the district court granted summary judgment to the County based on public-safety interests.
- Plaintiffs appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the Second Amendment protects responsible, law-abiding citizens’ right to carry a firearm in public for self-defense.
2. Whether San Diego County’s “good cause” policy, which excluded general self-defense from qualifying, violated the Second Amendment when combined with California’s restrictions on open carry.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit panel reversed the district court’s summary judgment for the County.
- The panel held the Second Amendment protects a right to carry a firearm in public for self-defense.
- The panel held the County’s “good cause” policy, operating against the backdrop of California’s restrictions on open carry, impermissibly infringed the right to bear arms by effectively barring typical citizens from publicly carrying a handgun for self-defense.
- The panel reasoned that where a regulatory scheme eliminates any practical avenue for ordinary citizens to carry a handgun in public for self-defense, it “destroys” rather than merely burdens the right and fails under any level of scrutiny.
- The panel rejected reliance on historical acceptance of concealed-carry restrictions because historical approval often assumed that some form of open carry remained available.

## Legal Principles

- The Second Amendment protects law-abiding, responsible citizens’ right to carry an operable handgun in public for lawful self-defense, subject to certain longstanding restrictions.
- A government may regulate the manner of public carry, but a scheme that prevents typical citizens from carrying a firearm in public for self-defense by any practical means violates the Second Amendment.
- Historical validation of bans on one mode of carry (such as concealed carry) does not justify a regime that, in practice, forecloses both open and concealed public carry for ordinary citizens.
- When a regulation eliminates the core ability to exercise a constitutional right, interest-balancing through heightened scrutiny cannot justify it.

## Conclusion

The panel concluded that San Diego County’s restrictive “good cause” standard for concealed-carry permits, combined with California’s limits on open carry, left ordinary, law-abiding citizens without a meaningful lawful avenue to carry handguns in public for self-defense and therefore violated the Second Amendment.


Peruta v. County of San Diego, 742 F.3d 1144 (9th Cir. 2014)