If you’re planning a visit to California and want to carry a firearm for self-defense while you’re there, you’re out of luck. The state doesn’t recognize concealed carry licenses from any other state, and there’s no way for a nonresident to obtain a California carry permit. Your right to keep and bear arms essentially stops at the California state line, but a coalition of Second Amendment groups is trying to change that. 

The California Rifle & Pistol Association, along with the Second Amendment Foundation, Gun Owners of America, Gun Owners of California, and several individual plaintiffs, are already challenging the prohibition on non-resident carry as part of its lawsuit against the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and the city of La Verne, California. 

Now the CRPA, joined by SAF, the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, and the Second Amendment Law Center, have filed an amicus brief with the Ninth Circuit in Matthews v. City of Los Angeles arguing on behalf of Garry Matthews and two other plaintiffs, each of whom were arrested and charged for carrying a firearm without a license. Matthews possessed a valid carry license from Tennessee at the time of his arrest, but that didn’t matter to the Los Angeles Police Department or LA County prosecutors. 

In their amicus brief, the Second Amendment organizations argue there is no historical tradition that supports California’s requirement that nonresidents, including those already able to lawfully carry in their home states,  must “submit to a burdensome process to obtain a California license to carry if they wish to exercise their Second Amendment rights while visiting or passing through the state.” Instead, attorney Chuck Michel says “laws historically exempted travelers from such local restrictions on their right to defend themselves while traveling.”

Even if Mr. Matthews wanted to go through the time and trouble of getting a California CCW permit, it would have been both legally and practically impossible for him to do so. The California Penal Code, even today, only allows issuing authorities to grant CCW permits to residents of California unless the non-resident applicant is regularly present in the state due to their employment. Those laws will soon be the subject of a preliminary injunction Amici won in their own litigation, and California will finally have to allow nonresidents to apply for California CCW permits. But that preliminary injunction has not yet gone into effect. And it was certainly not in place when Mr.Matthews was arrested in 2019.

Even once the preliminary injunction is in place thanks to the efforts of CRPA, SAF, GOA, and GOC, it’s still going to be incredibly difficult and a huge burden for nonresidents to obtain a California carry permit. Unless the injunction allows for online instruction, they’ll either have to travel to California for their training or find an instructor certified by CalDOJ in their home state who can teach the 16-hour course. They’ll also have to fork over hundreds of dollars in fees for a two-year license, which may not be practical or feasible for gun owners who only plan on visiting the state for a brief period of time. 

The simplest thing for California to do would be to recognize out-of-state permits, and the amicus brief makes a strong argument that the Second Amendment rights of travelers are a well-established part of the national tradition of keeping and bearing arms. There’s virtually no chance of the Democrat-dominated legislature in Sacramento making that change, but the odds are (slightly) better that the Ninth Circuit will follow the text, history, and tradition test to its logical conclusion and find California’s prohibition on nonresident carry a violation of our fundamental right to bear arms.