By Robert Phillips, Deputy District Attorney (Ret).

Second Amendment Update; Out-Of-State CCW Applicants:  

A lower federal court judge for the Southern District of California (San Diego) ruled on July 1 that California’s statutory restrictions on issuing to out-of-state applicants concealed weapons (CCW) permits, pursuant to Cal. Penal Code § 26155(a)(3) (issuance by a sheriff), and Cal. Penal Code §§ 26150(a)(3) (issuance by a chief of police), are unconstitutional.  Also at issue was another California statute—Pen. Code § 26220(b)—that restricts the renewal or extension of a CCW permit to those who reside in the “city, county, or city and county in which the licensee resides.”  

In Hoffman v. Bonta (Dist. Ct., So. Dist. of Cal., July 1, 2025) 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 125285, plaintiffs (all residents of other states) sought injunctive relief, challenging the constitutionality of California’s refusal to allow out-of-state residents to obtain a CCW permit, arguing that the applicable statutes (cited above) violated their Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms.”   

As with all such challenges to a state’s attempt to restrict the possession or use of firearms, the District Court turned to an analysis of the historical application of the Second Amendment, as required by the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark case decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen (2022) 597 U.S. 1.  (See also D.C. v. Heller (2008) 554 U.S. 570; and McDonald v. City of Chicago, Ill. (2010) 561 U.S. 742.)  

Pursuant to Bruen in particular, if the plaintiffs are able to meet their initial burden of demonstrating that they are “part of the people whom the Second Amendment protects, whether [any] weapon at issue is in common use today for self-defense, and whether the proposed course of conduct falls within the Second Amendment,” then the Court is to find that “the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct.” (Bruen, at pg. 24.) Plaintiffs argued here that as law-abiding citizens, their purpose in carrying a concealed firearm—specifically a concealable pistol—in public, would be for self-defense; an activity traditionally protected by the Second Amendment.  Accepting such an argument, the Court found that “it is beyond debate that the individual Plaintiffs are ‘people; living in the United States,” and that one’s rights under the Second Amendment cannot constitutionally be limited to those living in California alone.   

The plaintiffs having met their burden, the burden of proof then shifts to the State to show that its complete ban on nonresident carry permits is “consistent with this Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation.”  In analyzing the available historical case law decided since the “Founding era,” the Court ruled that the State of California was unable to meet this burden. Specifically, California was unable provide a historical analogue for licensing laws that did not allow nonresidents to apply.   

This being the case, the Court found that the plaintiffs’ Second Amendment right to apply for CCW permits took precedence over any attempt by California to justify such a prohibition. The Court therefore granted the plaintiffs’ request for an injunction, prohibiting California from enforcing the above-listed Penal Code sections to the extent that they prohibited plaintiffs from applying for and being granted CCW permits. 

Note that this is only a federal district (trial) court ruling by a single magistrate that will inevitably be tested at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals level.  This decision itself will likely be stayed pending that appeal. In the meantime, however, this case appears to be consistent with the host of other decisions coming down, one by one, protecting an individual’s right to “keep and bear arms,” interpreting this Second Amendment’s protections to allow all law-abiding citizens to not only possess firearms within their homes, but also to carry firearms in public, concealed or not.