Charles Nichols

From my February 22, 2026, update on my website. I wrote a cert petition for the lawsuit challenging the Illinois categorical ban on Open Carry in public. As I was going through the two statutes challenged by the Plaintiffs-Petitioners, I noticed that Illinois law requires an invitation to bring firearms onto private property, the only place where it is legal to openly carry firearms, except for hunting and target shooting. This was a gift from the gods because Hawaii also requires permission to bring firearms onto private property, and the Supreme Court had already granted the cert petition in Wolford v. Lopez (Hawaii). I then made that my second “question presented” in the cert petition I wrote. At a minimum, this guaranteed a GVR (Grant, Vacate, Remand) back to the Illinois Court of Appeals for a do-over. On January 23rd, I emailed my cert petition to the Plaintiffs-Petitioners’ attorney with the following message: “You need to pepper the petition with references to the Appendix in more places than I have indicated with [App. ]. I’ve left you plenty of room to expand on the argument, but the Rule 10 elements are there. Splits and questions of national importance. I can’t stress enough the importance of having the petition printed by Counsel Press. It will be expensive, but they will catch any of the hyper-technical requirements for a cert petition that I may have missed, plus you can be assured they will properly serve the respondents as well as print the copies and have them delivered to the right place and on time. If the deadline is missed, that’s it. And there are no more extensions of time left. 60-days was it. Also, once you have filed your cert petition, the 30-day clock for parties in support of your petition to file an Amicus brief starts ticking. It takes time to write, print and file Amicus briefs. Good luck!” For some inexplicable reason, the attorney deleted my second question presented, gutted my cert petition, and did not pepper the petition with citations to the appendix. If the Illinois attorney general is smart*, he will simply file a waiver of his right to respond, and the cert petition will be denied. This means we now have to wait for a cert petition from the O’Neil v. Neronha Open Carry lawsuit, which is pending before the First Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Baird v. Bonta cert petition, which will almost certainly be reheard en banc. The only bright side is that he did not file his lawsuit in Federal Court, which would have given the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals the opportunity to overrule its prior decision in favor of Open Carry, Moore v. Madigan (2012). The following are links to the cert petition I wrote and the link to the Supreme Court docket, where you can read the cert petition and appendix filed by the Plaintiffs-Petitioners’ attorney, and compare the differences. By the way, the application for an extension of time to file the cert petition was written by me. Fortunately, he did not gut the application, which was granted. I got us an extra 60 days to file the petition, which turned out to be for naught. Here is the link to the SCOTUS docket. * On February 25th, Illinois filed a waiver of its right to respond. My-Sinnissippi-appendix.pdf My-Sinnissippi-cert-petition.pdf

The Constitution means what the people who enacted it thought it meant at the time it was enacted. The Second Amendment was enacted in 1791 when the use of a concealed weapon to kill one's adversary was punished by death without the possibility of a pardon or lesser punishment (the latter being known as "benefit of the clergy"). By 1868, when the 14th Amendment was enacted, every court that considered the question held that carrying a concealed weapon is not a right protected by the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment "stipulates" that only Open Carry is the right for the same reason that it stipulates that the right to bear arms does not protect a right to commit murder. Concealed carry is like same-sex marriage. The American People who voted to enact the 14th Amendment did not think that their amendment to the Constitution was creating a right to same sex marriage, and neither did generations of Americans after them until five justices of the Supreme Court contrived it. If the Supreme Court ultimately holds that concealed carry is a right protected by the Second Amendment, the right will have been contrived by the justices because it never existed before.

What people think and fifty cents won't buy a cup of coffee. Right or wrong, as a matter of law, the Second Amendment means what the Supreme Court says it means. With the possible exception for travelers while actually on a journey, the Supreme Court said in District of Columbia v. Heller that the 19th-century prohibitions on concealed carry do not violate the Second Amendment. In McDonald v. City of Chicago, the majority cited that section of Heller in response to Justice Stevens' dissent. The six-justice majority in NYSRPA v. Bruen said the Constitution means what it said when the Second and Fourteenth Amendments were enacted, and said only concealed carry can be prohibited. The three-justice dissent in Bruen said they accept that Heller is Stare Decisis. The Supreme Court in US v. Rahimi cited Section III of Heller, which said the 19th-century prohibitions on concealed carry do not violate the Second Amendment. The concealed carriers fall into two camps. The first claims, without a shred of support, that the Second Amendment protected a right to concealed carry in 1791 and 1868. The other camp, as in NYSPRA v. Bruen, reluctantly concedes that the Second Amendment did not protect concealed carry during the relevant time period, but argues Open Carry can be banned in favor of concealed carry today because people are on a different wavelength from the American People who enacted the Second and Fourteenth Amendments. There is no such thing as a "Different Wavelength Doctrine of Constitutional Interpretation." N.R. Smith clip from Baird v. Bonta.mp4

I have never filed a brief or made any statement in my oral argument on appeal that the Supreme Court hadn't already stated. It is the concealed carriers who have been arguing that Heller said Open Carry can be banned in favor of concealed carry. That was the argument the NRA lawyer, Paul Clement, made in Peruta v. San Diego (en banc) and lost. In the oral argument to NYSRPA v. Bruen, he changed his tune somewhat. He no longer argued that was the holding of Heller; he argued that Open Carry can be banned in favor of concealed carry because people today are "on a different wavelength." Not an argument I would have made in front of a court where six of the justices claim to be originalists.* And not an argument I would have made given that it was not a crime to openly carry loaded long guns in New York. Outside of New York City, one did not even need a license. More so, given that a license to carry a handgun allowed concealed carry, it did not prohibit Open Carry. Nor was it a crime not to comply with the restrictions placed on the permit. The worst that could happen, which the State argued in its brief on the merits, was that the license to carry a handgun in public would be revoked. *Justice Kagan claimed that she is an originalist. Justice Kagan - concealed carry versus open carry.mp4

"Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. See, e. g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152-153; Abbott 333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. See, e. g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489-490; Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students’ Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884)." District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) Justice Scalia said concealed carry is not a right.mp4

The citation from Chandler, "Secret advantage and unmanly assassination," is concealed carry. Justice Scalia spelled it out in the very first paragraph of Section III: "Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. See, e. g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152-153; Abbott 333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. See, e. g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489-490; Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students’ Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884)."

District of Columbia v. Heller said that State v. Chandler and Nunn v. State "perfectly captured" the meaning of the Second Amendment right.

Mark Baird is tolerant of concealed carriers. Worse, his New York attorney decided to argue that both concealed and Open Carry are protected by the Second Amendment even though the three-judge panel on the Court of Appeals can do nothing about California's prohibition on concealed carry are California's concealed carry licensing laws because Mark Baird's lawsuit is limited to the Open Carry of handguns. Judge VanDyke was right when he told Mark Baird's attorney that her oral argument didn't help her case. Concealed carry is an act of moral turpitude in Illinois and California. Every state in the history of the United States, with the exception of Vermont, came to the same conclusion. Legalizing an act of moral turpitude does not change the immorality of the act. Concealed carry is to the Second Amendment what same-sex marriage is to the 14th Amendment, a right that never existed and only contrived to placate the immoral.

Vandermyde's post appeared in a Google news alert, so I clicked on the link. When I saw a post in response saying that I had been banned here, I posted a reply and the rest followed. Do try and pay better attention.

Thank you. I have been called many things in my life; "quitter" was never one of them. 🤠 That said, neither I nor Mark Baird is getting any younger. Time is not on our side. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals kept Ed Peruta's concealed carry appeal tied up for five years and eight months before he received a final judgment he could take to the Supreme Court. They kept George Young Jr's handgun Open Carry appeal tied up for eight years and four months before he received a final judgment he could take to the Supreme Court. NYSRPA v. Bruen got me a reversal of judgment in favor of the State of California and a remand after eight years and three months in the Court of Appeals. Not only have I been in court for thirteen years and seven months without receiving a final judgment from the Court of Appeals that I can take to the Supreme Court, I have a hearing on the 18th of this month in which I have to explain to the district court judge why she doesn't have jurisdiction to stay my case until there is a final judgment in the Baird v. Bonta appeal. She knows she does not have jurisdiction to stay my lawsuit. The State of California knows she does not have jurisdiction to stay my lawsuit. I had to go to the Chief Judge for the Central District of California to force the district court judge to set a decision date for the State's motion for summary judgment, which was May 30th (a decision she did not issue). Notwithstanding that, had she complied with the order of the Court of Appeals, she would have issued a final judgment by early 2023, at the latest. The only way I will be able to obtain a final judgment in the district court is to first request that the Chief Judge reassign my case, and then file a writ of mandamus and prohibition with the Court of Appeals when the Chief Judge for the district refuses my request for a reassignment. And once I extricate myself from the district court, I will still have to brief and argue my appeal. After that, it will likely be years before the Court of Appeals issues a final, appealable judgment that can then be taken to the Supreme Court. I spent over $3k on a petition before final judgment to SCOTUS, which was denied. That was before Justice Thomas let us all know that the Supreme Court is not going to grant interlocutory appeals in Second Amendment cases. Here is a short video clip of Mark Baird from ten months ago. He isn't much older than me. The anti-gun judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals know that if they delay our cases long enough, they will become moot.

It is not my purpose in life to seek converts or save the souls of cowardly, depraved degenerates. Nor could I if I wanted to, which I don't. People either learn the difference between right and wrong when they are children, or they don't. Six months before I filed my California Open Carry lawsuit, I announced my intention to file the lawsuit on the condition that one hundred people donate $50 each. I am not a religious man, but that was my homage to the story of Lot. Just as Lot was unable to find ten decent men in Sodom, I did not think I would find one hundred decent men in California. Unfortunately, I did find them. And having found them, I was honor-bound to go through with my lawsuit. Fortunately, I don't have to pay $650 per hour for a lawyer like Mark Baird, who filed a separate Open Carry lawsuit. And now that I no longer have to file two paper copies of my filings at the courthouse and serve the Defendants' seven lawyers with paper copies by mail (printing and postage are very expensive), a lack of money is no longer an obstacle. When Mark Baird made a public plea for funds because he was down to $3k in funds, I turned to one of my long-time, wealthier supporters who funded his appeal. In short, I didn't ask for your support. I don't need it, and even if I did, I wouldn't want it.

I did not say that murder with Open Carry was historically protected. If one had simply walked up to another person at the time, drawn an openly carried weapon, and killed someone, then it was murder, and he would be hanged. Four or five hundred years earlier in England, that was not the case. Murder was punished with excommunication, confiscation of lands, and exile. From 1603 to 1825 the law in England was that if one used a concealed weapon, either carried on the person or secreted nearby, and used that concealed weapon to kill another person without first displaying (presenting) the weapon to one's opponent in order to give him the opportunity to either decline what is known as "mutual combat" or to similarly arm himself then the concealed carrier was executed. There was no possibility of a pardon or lesser punishment. As handguns were not concealable in 1603, the law initially applied to bladed weapons. However, when firearms became easily concealable, the law was expanded to include them. Given that the American colonies were English colonies and American colonists strove to emulate what they perceived as the ideal of being perfect Englishmen, they adopted the laws and traditions of England. There was an early 19th-century state high court decision that relaxed the rule somewhat. The Court held that if one were not the initial aggressor and used a concealed weapon to save his life, then he could escape execution. If two people were fighting with weapons that were openly carried, then the tradition was to give the victor what was called "the benefit of clergy" for a first offense. Meaning he would not be executed. There was an English Court that held that if the combatants were fighting with cudgels (a commonly carried wooden club), which was viewed then as we view boxing today, and one of the combatants died then it was unfortunate, but not a crime because in the view of the court, fighting with cudgels built character. To give an example of how much things have changed over time, in California, which adopted English common law when it became a state in 1850, offenses were charged as violating the common law because there was no codified penal code. Today, an initial aggressor has the duty to retreat, but if he is unable to retreat or surrender, then he has the "right" to use deadly force if he has a reasonable fear of imminent serious bodily injury or death. The Founding Fathers were men of honor; they fought duels. If one were able to travel back in time and tell them that one carried a concealed weapon because it gives one a secret (tactical) advantage over their opponent, they would look at that person with disgust. Which is why the NRA lawyer, Paul Clement, said in the oral argument to NYSRPA v. Bruen that Open Carry can be banned today in favor of concealed carry because people today are on a "different wavelength." Looking around at the world today, I would agree that most people today are on that different wavelength of cowardice and immorality. But that doesn't change the history and tradition of the Second Amendment.

You said four things in one sentence, all but the first are a lie. From September of 2011 to September of 2016, when it expired because I did not renew it, I was the President of a California nonprofit association, not a corporation. My California nonprofit association was never a party to my lawsuit if for no other reason than an association, unlike a corporation, is not a "person" that can be a party to a lawsuit. At its peak, it had over 400 associates. Small in number compared to the so-called gun-rights groups that made little effort to hide their opposition to Open Carry, but evil has always greatly outnumbered the good.

Only open carry is protected by the Second Amendment. In the history of the Anglo-American right to keep and bear arms leading up to 1791, and throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, no court had ever held that the Second Amendment protects a right to concealed carry. Throughout the history of the English colonies in America, and after independence, well into the 19th century, the use of a concealed weapon (in both England and the United States) to kill one's opponent was punished by death, without the possibility of pardon or lesser punishment, let alone acquittal which was often the case when the opponents fought fairly with openly carried weapons. The NRA, in its briefs filed in NYSRPA v. Bruen, and all of the Amicus briefs could not cite a single case that held concealed carry is a right protected by the Second Amendment, or that a prohibition on Open Carry made concealed carry a right protected by the Second Amendment. The principal cases cited in Heller and Bruen said that concealed carry is evil. I have never hidden my aversion to concealed carry or my contempt for those who claim the Second Amendment is a right to what you call a "strategic advantage," which is what Heller called a "secret advantage and unmanly assassination." It has always been common for people to rationalize immoral acts to the ignorant; what has changed today is that people either simply don't care about morality and/or parade depravity as a virtue. That is one parade you will never see me marching in.

Take a look at the posts above. You might support Open Carry, but this forum, like every forum, has concealed carriers who attack Open Carry and attack the few of us, like me and Mark Baird (the only two people to ever file a lawsuit against California's Open Carry bans), who have devoted years of our lives fighting for Open Carry. Ironically, these creatures seem to think that we give two cents what they think. But such is the nature of concealed carriers who invariably give the same two reasons why they oppose Open Carry: 1) They are afraid Open Carry will make them a target (cowardice) and, 2) concealed carry gives them a secret advantage (immorality).