BELLEVUE, WA – Attorneys for the Second Amendment Foundation and Calguns Foundation have filed a brief seeking U.S. Supreme Court review and ultimate reversal of a ruling by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in their long-running challenge of California’s waiting period requirement on additional firearm transactions for people who already own guns.
The case is known as Silvester v. Becerra, which challenges the Golden State’s 10-day waiting period on firearms transfers to gun-owning citizens.
“Rights delayed are rights denied,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “By defending this waiting period, the state of California is essentially saying gun owners are potential criminals who are considered guilty until they prove themselves innocent, which is silly because they already own guns.
“The Second Amendment, which was incorporated to the states via the 14th Amendment in SAF’s 2010 Supreme Court victory in McDonald v. City of Chicago, is not a second-class right,” he added. “Nor are gun owners in California, or anywhere else in the Ninth Circuit, second-class citizens who must be treated differently than any other citizen simply because they wish to exercise their right to keep and bear arms.”
Gottlieb said the Silvester case “simply begs for attention from the Supreme Court.”
“It is nonsense for the state to enforce a waiting period on someone who has passed a background check and who already owns other firearms and may have a concealed carry permit,” Gottlieb observed.
As noted in the brief, “there is no suggestion that the California legislature ever considered or addressed evidence regarding the need for a cooling-off period either generally or, more relevantly, for those who already own a gun.”
“It’s time for the Supreme Court to straighten out this problem,” Gottlieb concluded.