Fouts

I. INTRODUCTION

Since 1917, the State of California has made it a crime for the average citizen to possess a weapon known as a billy. Like S&H Green Stamps, over the years the billy’s popularity has come and gone, yet the billy law remains. But for the threat of violating the criminal statute, Plaintiffs would possess a billy or baton for self-defense. Plaintiffs challenge the law as an infringement on their federal constitutional right to keep and bear arms. In this case of first impression, both sides move for summary judgment. Because the 104-year-old state law qualifies as “longstanding,” it is a permissible restriction on a dangerous, but less-than-lethal, unusual weapon. Therefore, Plaintiffs’ motion is denied and Defendants’ motion is granted. II. BACKGROUND California’s dangerous weapon statute was enacted in 1917, not long after the first airplane was invented by the Wright Brothers in 1903. The 1917 statute criminalized the possession of “any instrument or weapon of the kind commonly known as a blackjack, slungshot, billy, sandclub, sandbag, bludgeon, or metal knuckles.” The…