Second Amendment doesn't give the right to carry guns in public, US appeals court says

PHOENIX - The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit threw out a challenge to a Hawaii gun law on Wednesday that prevents people from carrying a weapon outside the home without a permit.

The court says the law saying a permit is required does not go against the Second Amendment because the amendment does not give citizens the right to carry guns in public.

How will this impact Arizona? Former US Attorney Mike Bailey says that this ruling most likely won’t have an impact in the Grand Canyon State.

"The law gives the discretion, the subjective discretion, to the chief of police in any town and the chief of police will only give out a gun if you can say that for some reason your life is in danger," Bailey explained.

The Hawaii law requires those permitted to carry a firearm to have "good character" and to "be engaged in the protection of life or property."

Because the 9th circuit is not mandating anything, it is just giving its states the option of enacting no right to restrict guns in public.

He added, "Arizona has a long history of support for liberty and Second Amendment rights and in fact, our own state constitution has very broad rights to bear arms in self-defense and so there's not a realistic possibility that we would ever be faced with laws so restrictive that this ninth circuit opinion would affect us."

The court stated that the Hawaii law does not go against the Second Amendment because it does not prevent anyone from protecting his or her life or business, with most of the court agreeing that, "We can find no general right to carry arms into the public square for self-defense ..." because in their words the Second Amendment protects the right to carry arms in "defense of hearth and home."

Bailey days out of all the western states in the 9th Circuit, the only one that he could see considering this kind of restriction would be California.

This story was reported on from Phoenix, Arizona.