L.A. Mayor Sued For Closing Gun Stores Amid COVID-19 Concerns

As COVID-19 became a legitimate concern, many people recognized the potential for additional mayhem and began buying guns. Unfortunately, California’s draconian gun laws stymied many who wished to take a firearm home with them. They found out all sorts of things they’d heard about gun laws to be completely untrue.

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They ran also ran slap into California’s 10-day waiting period for all firearm transfers.

Now, those who got to the gun stores early may have been able to get their guns after the 10 days expired, but many others couldn’t. Especially in Los Angeles.

Why? Because the mayor shut down the gun stores. Now, he’s facing a lawsuit over it.

Newsom’s order declared them essential but did permit local law enforcement to decide otherwise.

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Garcetti, however, isn’t law enforcement. As such, he didn’t have the authority under Newsom’s order to make such a determination. Frankly, the California Rifle & Pistol Association has a pretty strong case from my layman’s perspective.

Couple that with the Department of Homeland Security’s determination that they were–despite its non-binding status–and Garcetti will likely be hard-pressed to actually defend this in a court of law.

On the flip side, this is California. It’s also entirely possible that the courts’ inherent anti-gun biases will play into things and they’ll decide that Newsom didn’t really mean what he said or something.

Then again, there have been some interestingly sort-of pro-gun stances coming from unlikely quarters in the last month, including Newsom not just issuing a blanket closure order for gun stores in the state. Honestly, it’s what many people expected him to do and if he had, it would have been consistent with his previous comments on guns.

Only, he didn’t. It’s possible that the court will fall along similar lines. Especially since the group behind the suit isn’t actually arguing the Second Amendment, but instead are hitting Garcetti over his refusal to adhere to Newsom’s authority.

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Garcetti, on the other hand, is maintaining his anti-gun credentials and screw the consequences. And he’s being sued over it.

Honestly, this is going to be an interesting one to watch play out. Whether it plays out before the COVID-19 restrictions are no longer in effect, however, remains to be seen. Either way, this has the potential to settle some very interesting questions about who has what kind of authority during an emergency such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

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