Though California Penal Code § 22210 criminalizes the possession of a less lethal billy for self-defense, federal courts protect the Constitution, and the Constitution protects this citizen choice. The Second Amendment, “is the very product of an interest balancing by the people and it surely elevates above all other interests the right of law abiding, responsible citizens to use arms for self-defense.” The American tradition is rich and deep in protecting a citizen’s enduring right to keep and bear common arms, whether they be rifles, shotguns, pistols, knives, or less lethal arms like stun guns and billies. It is “this balance—struck by the traditions of the American people—that demands our unqualified deference.”
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III. CONCLUSION
The Second Amendment protects a citizen’s right to defend one’s self with dangerous and lethal firearms. But not everybody wants to carry a firearm for self defense. Some prefer less-lethal weapons. A billy is a less-lethal weapon that may be used for self-defense. It is a simple weapon that most anybody between the ages of eight and eighty can fashion from a wooden stick, or a clothes pole, or a dowel rod. One can easily imagine countless citizens carrying these weapons on daily walks and hikes to defend themselves against attacks by humans or animals. To give full life to the core right of self-defense, every law-abiding responsible individual citizen has a constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms like the billy for lawful purposes. In early America and today, the Second Amendment right of self-preservation permits a citizen to “‘repel force by force’ when ‘the intervention of society in his behalf, may be too late to prevent that injury.’”66 The Founders of our country anticipated that as our nation matured circumstances might make the previous recognition of rights undesirable or inadequate. For that event, the Founders provided a built-in vehicle by which the Constitution could be amended, but a single state, no matter how well intended, may not do so, and neither can this court.
Plaintiffs in this case challenge California Penal Code § 22210 as it applies to a billy. It is declared that the prohibition on a billy unconstitutionally infringes the Second Amendment rights of American citizens and it is hereby enjoined.
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