Federal judge blocks California firearms carry law, calling it ‘sweeping, repugnant to the Second Amendment’

A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked a California law that would have banned the carrying of firearms in most public places after ruling that it violates the Second Amendment. 

U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney granted a preliminary injunction blocking the law, calling it “sweeping, repugnant to the Second Amendment, and openly defiant of the Supreme Court.” He said the law also deprives people the ability to defend themselves and their loved ones. 

The ruling was a win for the California Rifle and Pistol Association, which sued to block the law. 

“California progressive politicians refuse to accept the Supreme Court’s mandate from the Bruen case and are trying every creative ploy they can imagine to get around it,” the California association’s president, Chuck Michel, said in a statement. “The Court saw through the State’s gambit.”

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Fox News Digital has reached out to the CRPA as well as the office of Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Attorney General. 

The law was signed by Newsom in September and was slated to go into effect on Jan. 1. It effectively banned people from carrying concealed guns in 26 places including public parks and playgrounds, churches, banks and zoos, regardless if they have a concealed weapon carry permit or not. 

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Michel said under the law, permit holders “wouldn’t be able to drive across town without passing through a prohibited area and breaking the law.” He argued the ruling makes Californians safer because criminals are deterred when law-abiding citizens can defend themselves.

In January, Newsom called the Second Amendment a “suicide pact” during an interview following two mass shootings in the state. 

“This Second Amendment’s becoming a suicide pact, it feels like,” he said. “California’s 37% lower gun death rate of the rest of the nation, and yet, with all that evidence, no one on the other side seems to give a d–n.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.