Something seismic happened in American law on January 3, 2026, and most of the country barely registered it. A panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down California’s ban on openly carrying firearms in its most populated counties as unconstitutional. It is more than a legal opinion. It is a message about rights, history, and how the law must reckon with both.
California is a state known around the world for its strict approach to gun laws. The ban in question applied to counties with more than 200,000 residents, a geographic sweep that covered where 95% of the state’s people live. Under that law, openly carrying a firearm was effectively off limits in every major city from Los Angeles to San Francisco.
The court did not reach that conclusion lightly. The majority opinion looked to the text of the Second Amendment and to how our ancestors thought about bearing arms.
The justices said that public carry of firearms was a part of the Nation’s history and tradition, protected at the time of the founding and again at the time of the Fourteenth Amendment. Because California could not show a similar, longstanding tradition of fully banning open carry, the law could not stand.
One judge on the panel refused to go along with that reasoning. He said that because California already allows concealed carry statewide, it could limit how and where guns are carried openly, essentially picking and choosing how constitutionality is applied.
What It Means for the Streets and the Courts
Let us be clear about what this is not. It is not a green light for anyone to march down Hollywood Boulevard with an AK-47 hanging by their side. There are still licensing rules, still prohibitions on loaded carry without proper permits, and still restrictions in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.
What must be understood by those concerned violent militias will now march down the road is that just because the option to open-carry exists, doesn’t mean the majority or even an increased minority of citizens will take advantage.
For states that have long had more open gun rights, it is not exactly a common sight to see a cowboy with the largest pistol they could strap to their belt walking through the grocery store looking for trouble.
The culture just doesn’t agree with that, even among more solid 2A defender states.
Concealed carry is safe carry, and that has already been a policy gun owners have adopted in California.
The Broader Debate
This decision comes on the heels of other Second Amendment challenges since a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 2022 reshaped how courts must assess gun laws. That prior decision emphasized that firearm restrictions must align with historical traditions and not merely serve perceived modern policy goals. In this light, what the Ninth Circuit did is not radical but consistent with a principled approach to constitutional adjudication.
At the same time, it will not be the final word. California officials have signaled that they will ask for a rehearing by the full court. There is also the possibility that the Supreme Court will be asked to weigh in. That is how our system works. Rights are not static artifacts locked away in a museum. They are living concepts that get tested at every generation.
Along that line of thinking, we cannot properly pursue a just future without taking a moment to reflect on how exactly we got here.
A Moment to Reflect
If you look at the streets of any city, you will find people going about their day unaware of legal shifts happening in courtrooms. But for millions of Americans, this ruling touches the core of what freedom means.
Perhaps that is why it is often forgotten that it was not a democratic politician that began California’s history of suppressing gun rights in California but rather a republican one in our not-too-distant-past.
The Mulford Act was signed into law in 1967 by none other than Ronald Reagan and this policy was supported by the NRA. This law essentially banned open-carry of a loaded firearm in public. While he would go on to run on a rather pro-gun rights platform for presidency, the state he was once governor of was forever changed by his decision to restrict gun rights.
After his presidency, he would go on to say that no citizen needs to own an “assault weapon” like an AK-47. Politicians and platforms change as they believe they must to stay elected, so it is important to stay true to our own beliefs and those enshrined in our constitution.
At its heart, liberty means that the law must protect the rights of the individual before it protects the preferences of the state. The problem is, the law is dictated by people and people are capable of being fallible, and so we must always be on our guard against elected officials in case they begin to stray and someone more deserving of spearheading the good of the people comes along to be elected and can politely show them the door.
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