Disagree.
Most locales that bar most CCW by specifying a "need" or "proper person" requirement also bar OC, so that they are preventing most people from carrying
for self-defense. The SCOTUS has already determined in
Heller that the right to self-defense is fundamental, so that states (thanks,
MacDonald!) must now allow some form of carry for SD, barring clear reason that a given individual is not allowed to carry, or that carry in a "sensitive area" is not allowed.
To rule otherwise would require a fundamental reversal of
Heller...which is what the antis will hope for (and likely get) if we lose a conservative Justice, or Kennedy.You may want to re-read Breyer's dissent in
Heller. He used standard Brady stats on how much "gun crime" there is, and the "of course" assumption that outlawing guns = no guns = no gun crime to conclude such laws advance the "compelling government interest" of public safety.
Rulings do not require logic or data; assumptions will do.
That is why some folks are hopeful about
the recent SCOTUS ruling that said that CA minors could NOT be prevented from buying violent video games, because there was no scientific concensus that playing those games was harmful to kids. If the SCOTUS adopts that reasoning in gun cases, then gun control laws cannot be held consistent with public safety unless there is "consensus" that limiting guns as per a given law (or limiting guns generally) improves public safety.
I think quoting the
whole context of what I wrote would have addressed your objection, don't you?
"It's just as likely that the court will never hear or decide gainfully on a CCW case because there is no special virtue to concealment protected by the second amendment.
All states may be required against their "states rights" to permit 'open carry,' but nothing in the second amendment protects a right to carry a concealed weapon."
Also I think you may also have misunderstood the Brown v EMA case and the court's decision. You've sort of got it backwards, actually.
The court decided that video games were protected speech under the first Amendment and declined to consider whether or not they were "harmful to children" or any other similar consideration or consensus.
On the contrary, as you can see in the opinion, the court rather made a point of eschewing "consensus" or considerations like "public good."
Here's what I'm talking about, the holding in the ruling, from your link:
Video games qualify for First Amendment protection. Like protected books, plays, and movies, they communicate ideas through familiar literary devices and features distinctive to the medium. And “the basic principles of freedom of speech . . . do not vary” with a new and different communication medium. Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wil-son, 343 U. S. 495, 503. The most basic principle—that government lacks the power
to restrict expression because of its message, ideas,subject matter, or content, Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, 535 U. S. 564, 573—is subject to a few limited exceptions for historically unprotected speech, such as obscenity, incitement, and fighting words.
But a legislature cannot create new categories of unprotected speech simply by weighing the value of a particular category against its social costs and then punishing it if it fails the test. See United States v. Stevens, 559 U. S. ___, ___.
ETA: I can see how later on when the court brings up the lack of evidence that violent games cause kids to be violent that it might be construed, outside its full context, as a rationale, but it is not. The opinion is complex and subtle, and that part of the holding sets up the significant part that follows, that "Since California has declined to restrict those other media, e.g., Saturday morning cartoons, its video-game regulation is wildly underinclusive, raising serious doubts about whether the State is pursuing the interest it invokes or is instead disfavoring a particular speaker or viewpoint."
I hope that clears things up!
)I am 20 and meet all state and federal requirements (no min age for issuance of a permit per AL state code), as well as maintain 2 other CCW permits from different states, yet my county Sheriff (Hale of Jefferson County) won't issue me a permit. Thankfully I've only got a few months of this left, but its the principle of the matter that really irks me. I can carry in 20+ other states without issue, I just can't carry at home.
