US federal judge blocks California law barring guns in public

A California law that would have banned the carrying of guns in most public places as of Jan. 1 was temporarily blocked by a federal judge on Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney of the Central District of California wrote in his preliminary injunction that the law would "unconstitutionally deprive" concealed carry permit holders "of their constitutional right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense."

The California law, Carney wrote, "is sweeping, repugnant to the Second Amendment, and openly defiant of the Supreme Court."