PD Editorial: Old West lore, New West law

In the Old West, every man carried a six-shooter everywhere he went.

Maybe on the big screen.

But not in the cow towns that inspired so much American folklore.

From Tombstone, Ariz. to Dodge City, Kan,, and in hundreds of towns in between, strict gun control laws prohibited firearms.

As Adam Winkler, a UCLA law professor and the author of “Gunfight: The Battle for the Right to Bear Arms in America,” wrote for the Huffington Post: “A visitor arriving in Wichita, Kansas in 1873, the heart of the Wild West era, would have seen signs declaring, ‘Leave Your Revolvers At Police Headquarters, and Get a Check.’?”

A sheriff’s duties included disarming people before they took the law into their own hands.

That hasn’t changed a great deal in California, where it’s against the law to carry a firearm in public, and sheriffs and police chiefs decide who can carry a concealed weapon.

But a pair of federal judges are riding roughshod over the law, and sheriffs and police chiefs are on the verge of losing their ability to regulate handguns in public places, where they pose a needless risk to public safety.

The law governing concealed weapons permits includes three requirements – an applicant must be of good moral character, have taken firearms training and have good cause. Sheriffs and police chiefs have broad discretion to determine what constitutes good cause, and many of them require applicants to show a clear and present threat to their lives.

That’s too strict, according to Judges Diarmuid O’Scannlain and Consuelo Callahan of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In a split decision we wrote about earlier this year, they said a permit should be issued to anyone who wanted to carry a gun for self-defense. In other words, fear alone is good cause.

Their decision overturned a lower court ruling, and it went further than the U.S. Supreme Court has on the subject. And this month, the judges doubled down.

San Diego County Sheriff William D. Gore, who was sued in the case, declined to appeal the ruling. As expected, Attorney General Kamala Harris asked the judges to reconsider the case and to allow her office to intervene in defense of the state law. So did the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the California Police Chiefs Association and the California Peace Officers Association. O’Scannlain and Callahan sent them away without a hearing.

“That this case is now on appeal rather than in the district court … suggests that the motions to intervene are untimely,” they wrote.

Harris should challenge judges’ decision to close the courtroom door. If the 9th Circuit ruling becomes the final word on this case, sheriffs and police chiefs will have little choice but to distribute concealed weapons permits to practically anyone who asks for one, potentially turning California into the O.K. Corral.