Let's be honest though. Legalizing poon for cash would put a bigger dent on this issue than gun control. Cons don't want that either and keep voting down policies that would benefit them the most .
States can prohibit people from openly carrying guns in public, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday, adding a voice to a heated issue that the U.S. Supreme Court may soon address. In a 7-4 ruling, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a Hawaii law that bans residents from openly carrying firearms without a license, which is issued only to those who can show they need the weapons to protect life or property. Police and members of the armed forces are exempt. California also requires open-carry licenses, which are virtually unavailable in the state’s most populous counties. “Our review of more than 700 years of English and American legal history reveals a strong theme: government has the power to regulate arms in the public square,” Judge Jay Bybee, one of the appeals court’s most conservative members, said in the majority opinion. “There is no right to carry arms openly in public; nor is any such right within the scope of the Second Amendment,” Bybee said. “It remains as true today as it was centuries ago, that the mere presence of such weapons presents a terror to the public and that widespread carrying of handguns would strongly suggest that state and local governments have lost control of our public areas.” In dissent, Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain said the right to “keep and bear arms,” declared in the Second Amendment, “must include, at the least, the right to carry a firearm openly for self-defense.” He was joined by Judges Consuelo Callahan, Sandra Ikuta and Ryan Nelson. The ruling comes as the Senate debates background checks for gun purchases in the wake of mass shootings in Boulder, Colo., and Atlanta that killed 18 people in the last week. President Biden called Tuesday for a renewed ban on assault weapons, high-capacity firearms that reload automatically. A national ban on the sale of such weapons expired in 2004. The Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the Second Amendment allows Americans to possess handguns at home for self-defense but has not decided whether it allows carrying firearms in public. When the Ninth Circuit upheld California’s ban on publicly carrying concealed handguns in 2016, the Supreme Court denied review of an appeal by gun advocates and left the ruling intact. Appeals courts have reached diverse conclusions on state laws banning openly carrying handguns, and the high court could decide next week whether to take up the issue in an appeal of a ruling upholding a similar law in New York state. https://www.sfchronicle.com/us-worl...als-court-says-no-it-s-not-OK-to-16050611.php
I am going to review the applicable laws and rules across the various states. Thank you for your input. I may revise my opinion based on my research. I will note the following. Despite the Wikipedia link on gun laws by state --- showing that North Carolina has "State Preemption of local restrictions" set to Yes for both long guns and pistols -- there are several cities in North Carolina have set their own more restrictive gun laws such as Carrboro -- my further research has revealed the entire situation is still tied up in court... nearly for a decade with no conclusion yet. All of this is all indicative that the mishmash of gun laws that are all different in states and localities is a problem in the U.S. This gets back to a point I made on an earlier thread regarding gun control. There should be a single U.S. federal standard for gun laws applied to the entire country. This includes allowed weapons, background checks and purchasing requirements. This also includes the right to carry firearms across state and country line with knowledge there is no difference in gun laws. As an additional measure CCW (Concealed Carry Permits) should be permitted at the federal level and allow the user to carry a concealed permitted gun in any locality -- of course gun control advocates don't support these common sense measures to have uniformity across our nation.
I will note that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has a long history of liberal leaning decisions. Many which are overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Curious if you have examined NYC's rules on firearms in regards to what is allowed in New York State, or at the Federal level.
Last night I spent some time researching state and local rules across states on gun restrictions. After this I will have to admit that you are correct - a majority of states have laws which do not allow states to have more restrictive gun laws than the the state. The situation however is in complete turmoil; there are states that recently enacted laws overriding cities and the cases in court. There are cities that passed more restrictive laws in states with long standing laws and those cases are now in court. The number of court cases on this issue across the nation is large. The entire situation points to a lack of leadership by the U.S. Supreme Court in establishing a legal precedent on this issue -- since none of these type of cases have been accepted on their docket since the 90s. IMO -- as mentioned earlier -- there needs to be uniform federal laws for guns across the U.S. including a national concealed carry permit. But, of course, this is another topic.