In Baird v. Bonta, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled on January 2, 2026, that California’s ban on openly carrying firearms in counties with more than 200,000 residents violates the Second Amendment. The court found that California could point to no founding-era tradition of restricting open carry and reversed a lower court judgment that had upheld the ban. The ruling does not take effect immediately. California’s open carry laws remain enforceable, and the state has already asked the full Ninth Circuit to rehear the case.
What the Court Held
The panel applied the two-step test from New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. It concluded first that the Second Amendment’s text covers openly carrying a firearm in public for self-defense, because the right to “bear” arms historically meant carrying them outside the home. That put the burden on California to defend its statutes with historical evidence, and the panel found the state came up short. The opinion stated there is “no record of any law restricting open carry at the Founding, let alone a distinctly similar historical regulation.”1United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Baird v. Bonta
The ruling was narrower than a total win for the plaintiffs. In counties with fewer than 200,000 residents, California allows sheriffs and police chiefs to issue open carry licenses. The panel treated that licensing scheme as a “shall-issue” regime where a general desire for self-defense suffices to qualify, and held it facially consistent with Bruen.1United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Baird v. Bonta So the court struck down the outright ban only where no licensing path exists at all, leaving the rural permit system intact.
Can You Openly Carry in California Right Now?
No. A federal appellate decision does not take effect until the court issues its mandate, which typically happens no earlier than 21 days after publication and can be delayed further by rehearing petitions and stay requests. The California Attorney General’s office has told law enforcement and prosecutors that the state’s open carry restrictions “remain in effect and should continue to be followed” until further action by the court.2California Attorney General. California’s Firearm Open Carry Laws Currently Remain in Effect
Anyone who openly carries a firearm in California today still faces arrest and prosecution. The panel opinion creates a legal argument for future challenges, not a present right to carry.
The California Laws at Issue
Two Penal Code sections do the work of California’s open carry ban. Section 26350 makes it a misdemeanor to carry an exposed, unloaded handgun on your person or inside a vehicle in a public place within incorporated cities and certain unincorporated areas. A standard violation carries up to six months in county jail, a fine of up to $1,000, or both. Carrying the handgun alongside compatible ammunition, without lawful possession, raises the ceiling to a year in county jail.3California Legislative Information. California Code PEN 26350
Section 25850 covers loaded firearms in the same public areas. Police may inspect any firearm carried in public to determine whether it is loaded, and refusing the inspection creates probable cause for arrest. Penalties climb sharply for people with prior felony convictions, who face felony charges, and for those with certain prior offenses, who face a mandatory minimum of three months in county jail.4California Legislative Information. California Code PEN 25850
“Loaded” is defined more broadly than many people realize. A firearm counts as loaded not only when a cartridge is chambered or in the magazine, but also when unexpended ammunition capable of being fired from that gun is in the carrier’s immediate possession. A handgun and a matching box of ammunition in the same backpack qualifies.
Between these two statutes, ordinary Californians in the state’s larger counties had no legal way to openly carry a firearm. The small-county licensing system covers only a fraction of the state’s population; the rest live under a flat prohibition.
Why California Lost the Historical Argument
The case turned on the Bruen test, which asks whether a modern firearm regulation is “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Modern arguments about public safety do not enter the analysis. Courts look primarily to laws from around 1791, when the Second Amendment was ratified, and 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment applied the Bill of Rights to the states. Evidence that “long predates or postdates either time may not illuminate the scope of the right.”5Justia. New York State Rifle and Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen
California offered several categories of historical evidence, and the panel rejected each as too different from a statewide open carry ban.
Surety laws from the 18th and 19th centuries allowed local officials to require a bond from someone whose armed presence caused alarm. The court found these were reactive measures aimed at specific individuals, not blanket prohibitions on carrying at all.
Nineteenth-century frontier town ordinances, in places like Tombstone, Dodge City, and Abilene, required visitors to surrender guns at town limits. The panel treated these as weak analogues. They were narrow municipal rules from a limited frontier period well after 1791, not a widespread American tradition, and they did not reach the scale of a statewide ban affecting millions.
California also invoked “sensitive places” restrictions, pointing to longstanding bans on firearms in courthouses, legislative buildings, and polling places. Bruen accepts such location-specific rules as constitutional, but the court drew a line between banning guns in a defined sensitive location and banning open carry across most of the state.
What Happens Next
On January 16, 2026, California petitioned the full Ninth Circuit to rehear the case en banc and vacate the panel’s decision.6California Attorney General. Baird v. Bonta Petition for Rehearing En Banc En banc review in the Ninth Circuit is heard by the chief judge and ten randomly selected judges, and a majority of active judges must vote to grant it. The federal rules say en banc rehearing “is not favored and ordinarily will not be ordered” unless it is needed for uniformity or the case involves a question of exceptional importance. A ruling striking down a major state gun law in the country’s most populous state has a strong claim to that standard.
If the full court takes the case, the panel opinion is vacated and briefing starts over before the larger panel. If en banc review is denied, or if the en banc court agrees with the panel, California would likely seek U.S. Supreme Court review. Years of additional litigation remain plausible before enforcement actually changes.
Reach Beyond California
A final ruling in Baird v. Bonta would bind every jurisdiction in the Ninth Circuit, including Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands.7United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. What is the Ninth Circuit? Most of those states already allow some form of open carry, so the direct impact would land mainly in California and Hawaii. The reasoning matters more broadly, because other federal courts working through post-Bruen challenges will look at how the Ninth Circuit weighed surety laws, frontier ordinances, and sensitive-places precedents against a modern statewide ban. The question of how close a historical analogue must be remains unsettled, and this case is a strong candidate to sharpen that standard if it reaches the Supreme Court.