Court Opinion

ID: 9944988
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-26 19:04:40.972287+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:25:15.385431
License: Public Domain

I dissent.
The statute in question has been held constitutional in In reRameriz, 193 Cal. 633 [226 P. 914, 34 A.L.R. 51], People v.Cannizzaro, 138 Cal.App. 28 [31 P.2d 1066], and People v.Cruz, 113 Cal.App. 519 [298 P. 556]. In Rameriz, supra, the Supreme Court said at pages 649-650: "It may safely be assumed that in a general sense the reasons that induced legislation involved in the case at bar exerted an influence in the adoption of the enactments considered in the foregoing authorities. If rights in land may be denied to aliens by the state there would seem no reason why in the exercise of its police power it might not also protect itself against the ownership, traffic in and use of firearms by aliens. This inhibition might well tend to conserve peace and quiet, and in times of war as well as of peace serve to avoid the injection of such issues into the international relations of the federal government.
"`Police power is the power inherent in a government to enact laws, within constitutional limits, to protect the order, safety, health, morals and general welfare of society.' (12 C.J. 904.) It is a well-recognized function of the legislature in the exercise of the police power to restrain dangerous practices (id. 916) and to regulate the carrying and use of firearms and other weapons in the interest of the public safety (id. 917). *Page 307 
"In our opinion the legislation constitutes a proper exercise of the police power and is not invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment. The purpose of the act is to conserve the public welfare, to prevent any interference with the means of common defense in times of peace or war, to insure the public safety by preventing the unlawful use of firearms. It cannot be assumed that the legislature did not have evidence before it, or that it did not have reasonable grounds to justify the legislation, as, for instance, that unnaturalized foreign-born persons and persons who have been convicted of a felony were more likely than citizens to unlawfully use firearms or engage in dangerous practices against the government in times of peace or war, or to resort to force in defiance of the law. To provide against such contingencies would plainly constitute a reasonable exercise of the police power."
To hold otherwise would require this court to not only run contra to established legal authority, but to indulge in the oft condemned practice of judicial legislation. In Rameriz, supra,
our Supreme Court quoted with approval from Patsone v.Pennsylvania, 232 U.S. 138 [58 L.Ed. 539, 34 S.Ct. 281] andState v. Rheaume, 80 N.H. 319 [116 A. 758] as follows: "Concerning the question of discrimination, the decision inPatsone v. Pennsylvania, supra, declared: `The discrimination undoubtedly presents a more difficult question. But we start with the general consideration that a state may classify with reference to the evil to be prevented, and that if the class discriminated against is or reasonably might be considered to define those from whom the evil mainly is to be feared, it properly may be picked out. A lack of abstract symmetry does not matter. The question is a practical one dependent upon experience. The demand for symmetry ignores the specific difference that experience is supposed to have shown to mark the class. It is not enough to invalidate the law that others may do the same thing and go unpunished, if, as a matter of fact, it is found that the danger is characteristic of the class named. . . . The question therefore narrows itself to whether this court can say that the Legislature of Pennsylvania was not warranted in assuming as its premise for the law that resident unnaturalized aliens were the peculiar source of the evil that it desired to prevent. . . . Obviously the question so stated is one of local experience on which this court ought to be very slow to declare that the state legislature was wrong in its facts.'" (P. 643.)
"It was said in State v. Rheaume, supra: `Classifications distinguishing between citizens and aliens have, not infrequently, been the basis of regulations under the police power of the states. . . . Aliens are under no special constitutional protection which forbids a classification otherwise justified simply because the limitation of the class falls along the lines of *Page 308 
nationality. That would be requiring a higher degree of protection for aliens as a class than for similar classes of American citizens. . . . It therefore remains to be considered whether there is such a relation between the restriction as to the alien and the public safety as to warrant the classification in the present case. . . . That explosives and firearms are proper subjects of regulation is self-evident. The Legislature was dealing with subject-matters of great inherent danger to the public. . . . It was an incident to such a system that a classification should be made, based on domicile, allegiance, duty, habit, temperament, and other characteristics which distinguish the citizen and applicant for citizenship from the alien who has manifested no desire or intention to bind himself to support the government. Citizens as a class have more settled domiciles, and are better known to the local police officials, while the sojourn of aliens in this country, in theory, and usually in practice, is temporary, and their abode, while here, capricious and uncertain. Citizens, by means of taxation, bear the expense of the government and of police protection, while the alien does not necessarily pay taxes or share any part of the public burden. Native citizens are justly presumed to be imbued with a natural allegiance to their government which unnaturalized foreigners do not possess. The former inherit a knowledge and reverence for our institutions, while the latter as a class do not understand our customs or laws, or enter into the spirit of our social organization. Or, passing more directly to the use of firearms, the citizen has an obligation to defend the state, while the alien has none. The citizen is required to assist in maintenance of order, the enforcement of law, and the arrest of wrongdoers in some instances. It is clear that there exists a reasonable and substantial basis for the classification.'" (P. 645.)
If, as stated by the majority, "recent developments in the law of equal protection . . . dictate a stricter standard of judicial review" be applied in the instant case than that utilized inRameriz, such standard should be established by current legislative action or Supreme Court mandate in the field of deadly weapons control.
I would affirm the judgment.
Respondent's petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied December 20, 1972. *Pages 309-331