Peruta v. San Diego gets lively

UPDATE: a description of what's going on. Basically,

The 9th Cir. has something like 28 active judges. The custom is that they divide into three judge panels to decide cases.

Peruta won before the panel. California cannot both (1) may "may issue" permitting and (2) ban all carrying, open or concealed, without a permit in incorporated cities and counties. The question was whether San Diego wanted to ask for en banc review (theoretically, before the entire 20+ judge court, but the Ninth Circuit is so big that en banc goes to 10 randomly selected judges and the chief judge). That's hard to get, really ties up the court, and usually it takes a conflict between two panel decisions to do it. Then en banc comes in to settle which panel decision should be the law of the circuit).

San Diego didn't want to try that, so it just let the time for requesting en banc pass.

California (and some antigun groups), which had never been involved in the case, filed motions to intervene and take over the case, so that THEY could ask for en banc. The argument was essentially, "we didn't join in this case earlier because we thought San Diego would protect our interests, and now it's not going to.

The panel denied the motion. California had simply waited too long. It could have gotten involved at any earlier stage, but passed it up.

California moved to take that decision, the denial of permission to intervene, and moved to have that decision taken en banc.

Apparently, at least one judge thought it was a good motion, so the court ordered both parties to brief it. Then they'll see if there are enough votes to grant it. It takes a majority of judges.

If denied, Peruta stands (altho two cases heard at the same time raising much the same issues might be taken en banc). If granted, California becomes the new defendant, and files its motion for rehearing en banc, and the court decides that. And of course after that, there's potential Supreme Court involvement.