Another Victory in a Case On Which I Worked

 Baird v. Bonta (9th Cir. 2026):

For most of American history, open carry has been the default manner of lawful carry for firearms. It remains the norm across the country—more than thirty states generally allow open carry to this day, including states with significant urban populations. 1 Indeed, several of our Nation’s largest cities and states recently returned to unlicensed open carry by explicitly authorizing it. For example, Texas reauthorized open carry without a license in 2021. 2 Kansas likewise transitioned back to allowing open carry without a permit in 2015. 3 And other states that placed restrictions on open carry in recent decades have also removed those burdens.4 Similarly, for the first 162 years of its history open carry was a largely unremarkable part of daily life in California. From 1850, when California first became a state, until the Mulford Act of 1967, public carry of firearms in California (open or concealed) was entirely unregulated. And when California first deviated (or considered deviating) from this practice, its reasons for doing so were less than morally exemplary. The first restriction on public carry that California contemplated was a concealed-carry ban in 1856—which was intended to apply only to “Mexicans,” who were considered dangerous. See The Rise and Fall of California’s First Concealed-Carry Law, NRA Institute for Legislative Action (Jan. 1, 2013) (citing John David Borthwick, “THREE YEARS IN CALIFORNIA” (1857); Roger D. McGrath, GUNFIGHTERS, HIGHWAYMEN, & VIGILANTES: VIOLENCE ON THE FRONTIER (1984)), https://www.nraila.org/articles/20130101/the-rise-and-fallof-californias-first-concealed-carry-law.

Eventually, in 1967 California first criminalized the peaceful open carrying of a loaded handgun in the Mulford Act—legislation that was also tainted with racial animus. See Mulford Act, 1967 Cal. Stat. 2459 (codified as amended at various sections of Cal. Penal Code); Cal. Penal Code § 25850 (2024). Passed during a period of significant racial unrest, the Mulford Act was a legislative response to the Black Panther Party’s activities, which included openly carrying firearms to protest police behavior in AfricanAmerican communities. See Thaddeus Morgan, The NRA Supported Gun Control When the Black Panthers Had the Weapons, HISTORY (last updated May 28, 2025), https://www.history.com/articles/black-panthers-guncontrol-nra-support-mulford-act. The catalyzing event occurred when “30 members of the Black Panthers protested on the steps of the California statehouse armed with .357 Magnums, 12-gauge shotguns and .45-caliber pistols and announced, ‘The time has come for Black people to arm themselves.’” Id. The California legislature disagreed and responded by passing the Mulford Act. Id. Yet even then, it remained legal in California to openly carry a handgun, so long as it was unloaded. See Mulford Act, 1967 Cal. Stat. 2459.

Count on an appeal to an en banc panel by California but this is then likely to end up before the Supreme Coiurt. 

En banc petition filed. No word on action yet