BELLEVUE, WA – Sept. 23, 2024 – Attorneys representing the Second Amendment Foundation and its partners in a case challenging California’s “sensitive places” statute have filed a petition for an en banc rehearing before the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The case is known as May v. Bonta.
SAF is joined by Gun Owners of America, the Gun Owners Foundation, Gun Owners of California, Liberal Gun Club, California Rifle & Pistol Association and several individuals including Reno May, for whom the case is named. They are represented by attorneys C.D. Michel, Joshua Robert Dale, Alexander A. Frank and Konstadinos T. Moros at Michel & Associates in Long Beach, Calif., and Donald Kilmer of Caldwell, Idaho.
A three-judge panel recently affirmed an injunction against the state’s restrictions “with respect to hospitals and similar medical facilities, public transit, gatherings that require a permit, places of worship, financial institutions, parking areas and similar areas connected to those places, and the new default rule as to private property.” But it was only a partial victory, and it narrowed the sweeping injunction issued earlier by the district court.
“As we note in our petition,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “the Ninth Circuit Court has never hesitated to grant en banc review in order to uphold a gun control law, so it should grant review in this case to uphold the general right to public carry as affirmed by the Supreme Court in the Bruen decision.”
“Our initial victory was upheld in part by the Ninth Circuit panel,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “We are now asking the court to fix the panel’s errors as to the provisions of the law which were upheld by reversing the district court’s injunction.”