Gun Free School Zone, Constitutional? New Virginia Tech shooting

[mrdd]

Other problems with the school zones is that people who live inside them are at risk of prosecution for carry within common areas inside private property.

Note that self defense or defense of others is not listed as an exception to the California nor the federal GFSZ. The only specific exception for the California law is for persons with an existing restraining order who carry as a result of circumstances connected with the restraining order.

[AyatollahGondola]

The comment in Heller regarding the presumptive constitutionality of laws restricting firearms in government buildings and schools is properly considered dicta and is not a holding of the court. Until SCOTUS actually undertakes a proper analysis and makes a ruling on point we won't know what principles apply and therefore can't guess at an answer.

It could simply be that Scalia had in mind that non-public areas of publicly owned schools could be restricted under a government as property owner theory. That is, if the school can legitimately restrict public access completely, then there are a number of rights in addition to the 2nd that they can curtail including but not limited to the 1st and 4th. Similarly, in regard to government buildings, if you want to enter you may have to submit to a search and once inside you may have to keep your trap shut (consider a courtroom where if you attempt to exercise your first amendment right to speech you can be tossed in jail - you may think the judge is a raving baboon but telling him that in open court is probably not a good idea).

So until some of these cases work their way back up to SCOTUS I don't think we can assume that Scalia believes that the California and Federal GFSZ as implemented are constitutional.

California school zones just saw legislation passed this year limiting first amendment activities with mobile billboards. Now the school administration can ask police to cite or arrest people using a mobile billboard within a school zone who are displaying messages that are disturbing the teaching environment. It was AB123. I lobbied against it, but few others understood what is happening to areas around schools.

AB 123, Mendoza. School safety: disruption threatening pupil's
immediate physical safety.
Existing law provides that a person who comes into any school
building or upon any school ground, or adjacent street, sidewalk, or
public way, whose presence or acts interfere with or disrupt a school
activity, without lawful business, or who remains after having been
asked to leave, as specified, is guilty of a misdemeanor. "School" is
defined to mean any preschool or public or private school having
kindergarten or any of grades 1 to 12, inclusive.
This bill would expand this provision to also apply to any person
who comes into any school building or upon any school ground, or
adjacent street, sidewalk, or public way, and willfully or knowingly
creates a disruption with the intent to threaten the immediate
physical safety of any pupil in preschool, kindergarten, or any of
grades 1 to 8, inclusive, arriving at, attending, or leaving from
school. Because this bill would expand the definition of an existing
crime, it would create a state-mandated local program.

I know that in reading it there is no mention of mobile billboards, however the whole discussion during the committee meetings revolved around one groups use of the billboard while driving around near the school. They were arrested and pleaded the 1st, they lost, and appealed, and won, but the court stated that if the law were worded differently, they might rule differently. This AB123 was the legislatures response to that ruling, and was aimed directed at having a tool to control what speech was acceptable within the school zone