Can California deny concealed carry permit after the recent SCOTUS decision? After the recent SCOTUS decision regarding concealed carry, can any state, in particular CA, deny a concealed weapon carry permit to its residents, who are not disqualified from gun ownership in any way?
There isn't one simple answer. The case prohibited a showing of a &quot;special need&quot; for a concealed weapon to allow one to have a permit. Many California concealed carry laws have similar requirements. But, California doesn't have just one concealed carry law. There is a default rule that applies in small, rural counties, but most larger cities and counties in California have their own specific concealed carry laws and the precise grounds for denying a concealed carry permit would matter. In all likelihood, many provisions of existing California concealed carry laws would remain grounds to deny permission to concealed carry (e.g. age, history of drug abuse, criminal record, restraining orders in place, etc.), while others provisions would no longer constitute valid grounds for a denial. This particular decision is about denying permits based upon lack of a particularized need for one different from other members of the general public, rather than about any possible reason that the permit applicant could be deemed untrustworthy to have a permit. The decision discusses the idea that it is problematic to have unfettered discretion in issuing permits, but doesn't really base its ultimate conclusion on that ground. So, something like a general residual &quot;good character&quot; requirement, while vague, wouldn't be squarely within the scope of the most recent decision. The case also doesn't itself prohibit (nor does the case law) some reasonable fee for issuance of a concealed carry permit. Thus, the new case does not require uniform law with &quot;constitutional carry&quot; for everyone permitted by federal law to own a gun. But, it does prohibit limitations related to a requirement to show a need to have a concealed carry permit.
You can basically take pictures of anything from your property if it is "public" (i.e. easily visible from your property). People on the road are in public, and have no reasonable expectation of privacy. The basic restrictions on photography are (1) you cannot trespass (you aren't), and (2) you cannot take pictures of certain government operations (e.g. airport border crossing – certain aspects of government prohibition may require lawsuit to rein in government policy that is at odds with the 1st Amendment; also secret military installations, for which there is specific law, 18 USC 795). Commercial exploitation of people who you photograph is strongly protected in California, and that is it.
It is unlikely that those requirements would be held to be unconstitutional. A fundamental right such as the right to bear arms can only be restricted in specific ways ("strict scrutiny") – compelling government interest (keeping people from getting shot accidentally), being narrowly tailored and the least restrictive. If, for example, the law also required passing an exam on the history of firearms, that would be overly broad. If the registration fee were $2,000, that would be too restrictive. But the law says that The sheriff may charge a new application processing fee in an amount not to exceed the actual and reasonable direct cost of processing the application or $100, whichever is less. Of this amount, $10 must be submitted to the commissioner and deposited into the general fund. The application fee is not just for the actual cost of applying for the permit, it also includes what looks like a $10 revenue source, and that sort of looks like an unnecessary restriction. I expect, though, that the state would argue that this $10 is necessary to defray actual long-haul expenses that could not be recovered given the $100 limit imposed by the law. The law does not actually require a person to pay for a training course, it just requires a person to take a course (or hold employment as a peace officer in the sate within the year).
No The case was dismissed on procedural reasons. Like this. Well, perhaps not so pedantic but there are things that have to happen before the Supreme Court can get involved and they haven’t. For example, the Supreme Court only has original jurisdiction in a limited classes of case; if this isn’t one of those (and it isn’t) it has to be heard in a court that does and then get appealed up the chain. When they have, the court will make a decision on the merits.
Yes. As long as a local or state ordinance is not in conflict with any section of federal statutes or federal authority as ordained my the US Constitution and current legal precedent in accordance with it, nor is unconstitutional, there is no reason a town cannot pass laws preventing this.
You have a couple major misconceptions about US law. First, crimes against the person are generally punished at the state level. States are not restricted to any sort of enumerated powers, and can pass any law they want to promote the general welfare unless there's a reason they can't. This is called the "general police power," and it lets them make everything from contract law to laws against murder. The federal government has to justify what gives it the authority to pass a law, and cities and counties have to justify their authority with state law or a state constitution, but a state government never has to preemptively justify why they have the authority to pass a law. States are especially not limited to powers listed in the federal constitution. The US Constitution sets up the federal government. State governments are set up by state constitutions, and derive their authority directly from the consent of the people of the state exercising their right to democratic self-determination. The only powers the US Constitution gives to states are minor technical powers involving state-federal relations (e.g. deciding how their presidential electors are appointed). But as I said, they aren't generally limited to any sort of enumerated powers by their state constitution either. Even the federal government isn't limited to "protecting rights listed in amendments." That's very little of what it does, in fact. Congress has powers listed (for the most part) in Article I and Article IV. It can pass laws banning murder in DC because Article I lets it exercise exclusive jurisdiction (meaning general police power) over DC and over federal enclaves. Article IV lets it exercise general police power over US territories, and pass laws regarding other federal property (I think it has a general police power there too, at least according to current law). The Necessary and Proper clause gives Congress the power to protect its own operations by, for instance, criminalizing the murder of a federal judge. Etc. Where there isn't a clear thing that lets the feds regulate something, they can probably get away with cramming "in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce" in the law, secure in the knowledge that practically everything affects interstate commerce. I'm not sure where you got the idea that laws are passed exclusively to enforce rights protected by the Constitution. They are not. They are not passed primarily for that purpose. Such laws do exist (e.g. deprivation of rights under color of law, which was passed pursuant to the 14th Amendment), but they're protecting you from government infringement of that right.
District of Columbia v. Heller 554 U.S. 570 (2008) is the Supreme Court's latest and clearest interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. The majority's analysis is almost entirely a textualist/original-meaning interpretation. They took the following to be the text of the 2nd Amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. The capitalization differences were treated as inconsequential in the analysis. The opinion refers to "the phrase “the militia” in the prefatory clause", with no capitalization when mentioning it. In interpreting the object of "keep and bear Arms", "Arms", the opinion immediately removes capitalization in its own discussion of the term. They even explicitly rule out the possibility that "keep Arms" has any special meaning: No party has apprised us of an idiomatic meaning of “keep Arms.” Thus, the most natural reading of “keep Arms” in the Second Amendment is to “have weapons.” The opinion also refers to Vermont's adoption of Pennsylvania's "right to bear arms", calling any differences in capitalization or punctuation inconsequential: In 1777, Vermont adopted the identical provision, except for inconsequential differences in punctuation and capitalization. Neither of the two dissents make anything of the difference in capitalization. None of the 68 amicus briefs mentioned the difference in capitalization. It did not come up in oral argument. The Brief for the Professors of Linguistics (in support of Petitioners) says: The Amendment’s first and third commas signal a pause for breath and can be omitted without affecting the meaning. They say that the second comma is consequential, but that comma is consistent between the two variants that you quoted.
If the question asks, "did you do X" where X is or includes a crime that you could be criminally prosecuted for, you can invoke the 5th amendment in refusing to answer that. I have seen that done and seen that objection to the question sustained in court. However, if admitting to X would provide only civil liability, then the 5th would not apply. At trial, you may also have to take care not to give direct testimony on things that are so closely related that you "open the door" to being required to answer that question. For example, you can't say "I don't owe because I did X" and then expect to not have to answer "So just to be clear, did you do X?" Also, depending on context, invoking the 5th might cause a jury to view your testimony more skeptically (cpast points out that "For civil cases, adverse inferences based on pleading the fifth are totally okay"), and if that's going to come up you should ask your attorney about whether or not it'd be a good idea strategically.