I'm surprised there was no comment (until now) on this above blog post, which I found quite interesting for a few reasons.

While I'm more supportive of concealed carry than open carry (I think there is ample evidence that crime is substantially reduced in areas where concealed carry is allowed more permissively, as has been documented by John Lott's studies on American concealed carry in practice), I think people should be allowed to utilize either concealed or open carry as they would wish. It seems to me that the U.S. Constitution should be used to back up this argument, but in recent history it certainly hasn't gone that direction in terms of how things are treated across the whole U.S. (federal / court cases) and so far it just has depended on what the states will do.

What I find interesting here is that the South Carolina Senate Bill S.449 and South Carolina House Bill H.3930 in 2017 (for Constitutional Carry/Open Carry) had the full support of the NRA without amendments, but the NRA at the same time refused to support efforts in California for open carry. There is a interesting development in that here, as recent as Feb. 27, 2018, at California Right To Carry.org ? California Open Carry.com in an ongoing court case that a guy has run against the State of California (Nichols v. Brown) in which the submission of the case, fully briefed is being vacated for the time pending the results of a similar case in Hawaii. So after the Hawaii decision comes down it may be that we will see even further interesting developments in this case. It was just 12 days ago that this California Open Carry case had its latest court development and is worth following -- from a recent news article on the subject, Nichols is quoted as follows:

"I am the first and only person in the fifty years since California’s ban on openly carrying loaded firearms became law to challenge that ban and to argue in my briefs that Open Carry is the right guaranteed by the Constitution.

Every so-called gun-rights group you may have heard of (NRA, CRPA, SAF, CalGuns, Gun Owners of America/California, etc) either filed lawsuits or filed briefs in support of California’s Open Carry ban and in support of California’s Gun-Free School Zone Act of 1995.

I am not a lawyer but, nonetheless, on December 3, 2017, my appeal appeared on the 9th circuit court of appeals oral argument calendar. Oral argument in my California Open Carry case is scheduled to take place on February 15, 2018, before a three-judge panel of the 9th circuit court of appeals.

(As noted above, this went to the 9th Circus and we are now waiting for a Hawaii decision before more can be known. Courts are funny that way.)

I had searched and searched for cases in which someone who was not an attorney, and who had never been an attorney, was allowed to argue his own case, without a lawyer, before the 9th circuit and today I found one.

That case, Waters v. Young et al, was argued and submitted for a decision on October 11, 1996."

What is also very interesting about this is that it shows how this guy Nichols, without a lawyer, has successfully moved forward a case against the State of California by using his own wits, careful research and proper filings, and 42 USC 1983 which allows people to sue to overturn unconstitutional actions and laws of a state.

This is definitely worth looking at further as we examine how to challenge California's AB 857 (2016) and other laws in court!

This whole thing began with Nichols' action 'in pro per' in the U.S. District Court in 2016 in which his opening salvo (of his 111 page filing against the State of California!) was...

"Plaintiff-Appellant Nichols is now, and at all relevant times, a native born
US citizen and resident of Los Angeles County California who invoked the district
court jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1343, 2201, 2202 and 42 U.S.C. §§
1983, 1985, 1986, 1988 against the Defendants-Appellees in their official capacity
as Governor and Attorney General of the State of California seeking prospective
injunctive and declaratory relief against various State of California
prohibitory Penal Code laws(...)"

Perhaps this was the beginning of a historic moment! We should all consider doing the same thing. (I know I am, and will use this as part of my approach to help overturn certain California laws.)

Cheers all.