The quest for the rights of ordinary, hardworking Americans to carry bazookas and roll Abrams tanks across government property continues its slow advance.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has
agreed to revisit an Alameda County couple's claim that a law banning guns on county land infringes on their Constitutional rights.
Russell and Sallie Nordyke originally filed suit in federal court after the county ordinance was first passed back in 1999. A U.S. District Court judge ruled against their claims that the law violated their First Amendment rights to express "gun culture" through a gun show the Nordykes had hosted at the county fairground since 1991.
In May, however, a three-judge panel of the appeals court decided
the Nordykes could file a new claim based on their Second Amendment
rights, since in the intervening years the increasingly conservative
U.S. Supreme Court had issued a number of rulings fortifying the rights of present-day Americans to possess and use lethal firearms.
The court
issued an order two days ago that the case be reheard en banc, or by all the judges.