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Plaintiffs argue it’s unconstitutional for gun buyers to be forced to wait; gun safety advocates say studies show “cooling-off periods” reduce gun deaths

A lawsuit filed by gun rights groups in San Diego federal court seeks to overturn California’s 10-day waiting period for new gun purchases, the latest in a growing body of cases filed locally that challenge the state’s strict firearms laws.

The lawsuit, filed Monday, claims that “a right delayed is a right denied” and that the 10-day waiting period is enforced even when a state database can confirm a person is eligible to buy a gun within minutes of submitting an application. The suit names California Attorney General Rob Bonta as the lead defendant.

“Defendants’ enforcement of the waiting period laws prevents law-abiding people from taking possession of lawfully acquired firearms for immediate self-defense and other lawful purposes — even after defendants know the individual is eligible to exercise their fundamental, constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms,” the lawsuit claims. “This relegates the right to keep and bear arms to second-class status.”

Bonta’s office released a statement Tuesday saying it received the complaint and was reviewing it. His office is expected to file a response defending the waiting-period laws in the coming weeks.

“Waiting periods for firearm purchases are a data-driven way to prevent gun violence, especially suicide,” Janet Carter, senior director of issues and appeals at Everytown Law, told the Union-Tribune in a statement Tuesday. “California’s waiting period will save lives. It is entirely consistent with the Second Amendment and it should be upheld.”

Second Amendment groups filed a similar challenge in 2011 and met initial success when a U.S. district judge in Fresno overturned the mandatory waiting period. But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district judge’s ruling, keeping the waiting period in place, and in 2018 the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

A lot has changed since then.

This time around, the law will be analyzed by a new legal standard that’s more friendly to those challenging gun laws. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority established the new standard last year when it struck down New York’s concealed-carry law in the case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. In its ruling, the high court said judges ruling on Second Amendment challenges must first decide if the conduct in question is constitutional based on the “Second Amendment’s plain text.” Courts then must determine if the government has shown its gun law to be “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

This new legal framework, typically referred to as the “text, history and tradition” standard, has forced government entities attempting to regulate modern weapons to look for closely comparable laws from around the time the Second Amendment was ratified some 230 years ago.

According to a brief filed in the first waiting-period lawsuit, California has mandated a waiting period for firearms purchases for 100 years.

The plaintiffs in the new lawsuit argue that’s not long enough to satisfy the history and tradition portions of the new legal standard. “No waiting period or any analogous laws existed in the constitutionally relevant period of history,” the lawsuit contends.

The specific laws being challenged were enacted in 2011.

California’s initial waiting period, enacted in 1923, was one day, but has varied to as long as 15 days in the 1970s, according to the friend-of-the-court brief filed by the gun-safety advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.

That same brief outlined the state’s reasoning for mandating a waiting period: It creates “a brief cooling-off period to reduce impulsive violence” and gives law enforcement enough time to determine if the prospective gun buyer is prohibited from purchasing a gun. Among the state’s list of prohibited people are those with felony convictions and certain misdemeanor convictions and people found by a court to be a danger to themselves or others because of a mental illness. People who are the subject of gun violence restraining orders and some other restraining orders are also prohibited from buying or possessing guns.

In a footnote, attorneys for the plaintiffs said they were not challenging the state’s list of prohibited people but also were not conceding the constitutionality of such prohibitions. Citing the Bruen decision, a federal appeals court in February ruled the government can’t stop people who have domestic violence restraining orders against them from owning guns.

According to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, California is one of nine states and the District of Columbia that legislate waiting periods of various types and lengths. Hawaii’s 14-day waiting period is the longest, while the District of Columbia, like California, also has a 10-day waiting period. Washington state previously had a 10-day wait for semi-automatic rifles, but legislators there voted last week to expand that to all firearm purchases.

A 2017 Harvard study found that waiting periods for handgun purchases reduce gun homicides by about 17 percent and may reduce gun suicides between 7 and 11 percent. The results implied that “states ... with waiting periods avoid roughly 750 gun homicides per year as a result of this policy,” the authors wrote. “Expanding the waiting period policy to all other U.S. states would prevent an additional 910 gun homicides per year without imposing any restrictions on who can own a gun.”

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed Monday include several San Diego County residents, two local gun stores, a local Second Amendment political action committee and several gun rights groups, including the Firearms Policy Coalition, the California Gun Rights Foundation and the Second Amendment Foundation.

The federal court in San Diego has become a popular venue for Second Amendment challenges, due in part to U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez’s friendly rulings.

The lawsuit filed Monday was randomly assigned to U.S. District Judge Larry Burns, but the plaintiffs could seek to get it in front of Benitez by arguing it’s related to other local Second Amendment challenges.

SAN DIEGO -- On their way to an historic NLDS upset last October, the Padres made do without Fernando Tatis Jr. They stunned the baseball world anyway, dethroning the 111-win NL West champion Dodgers in four games, flipping this once-lopsided rivalry squarely on its head.

But now that Tatis is back, the dynamic has so obviously shifted. The Padres aren't stunning anyone. They, too, are one of the sport’s juggernauts in 2023, considered the favorite to win the division by many prognostications. On Friday night, they looked the part.

Tatis’ return to the Padres-Dodgers rivalry was, naturally, a dramatic one. (Heck, it’s his rivalry as much as anyone’s. Was Padres-Dodgers even actually a thing before Tatis arrived?) He homered twice off Clayton Kershaw in a 5-2 San Diego victory -- a towering drive to left-center, tying the game in the third and a laser into the left-field seats to put the Padres on top in the fifth.

It marked just the ninth time in Kershaw’s illustrious career that any individual hitter has taken him deep twice in the same game. Tatis is the only player to have done so twice. In fact, the last player with a multihomer game off the Dodgers’ likely Hall of Fame-bound left-hander was … Tatis himself, nearly 25 months ago.

“He's one of the best of all time,” Tatis said. “When you're facing a guy like that, you for sure bring your 100 percent that day.”

In the interim, of course, Tatis missed the entirety of the 2022 season, first due to injury, then an 80-game PED suspension, which only expired last month. Tatis hadn’t quite looked himself at the plate in his first two weeks back, but the Padres nonetheless thrived with him back in their lineup. They entered Friday at 8-4 since Tatis’ return, playing their best baseball of the season.

But if Tatis returned two weeks ago in Arizona, on Friday night, he was well and truly back. His fifth-inning homer left his bat at 110.8 mph and landed in the seats in an instant. Tatis dropped his bat, then hopped a few times before turning to the home dugout and letting out a scream. This was Tatis in his element.

“This kid, man,” said shortstop Xander Bogaerts. “He’s very special.”

Bogaerts made his own introduction to the rivalry on Friday with a pair of walks and an RBI groundout. As a team, the Padres would work five walks against Kershaw and 11 total -- a franchise record in a game against the Dodgers.

Throw Bogaerts’ offseason arrival on top of Tatis’ return, and the Padres have every reason to feel the rivalry has tilted. A year ago, the Dodgers won all six regular-season series. They won the West by 22 games.

But the script flipped in October, and the Padres have since added two stars to the lineup that beat the Dodgers eight months ago.

“We can have success against anybody,” Tatis said.

Backed by Tatis’ two homers, Yu Darvish was excellent Friday night, pitching 6 2/3 innings, while allowing two runs (one earned) and striking out six.

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Darvish ran into trouble in the first two innings. Mookie Betts walked and scored in the first, before Darvish escaped further damage. In the second, after Miguel Vargas’ triple, Ha-Seong Kim snared David Peralta’s liner and fired to third for an inning-ending double play.

From there, Darvish was dominant, retiring the next 12 batters he faced while leaning heavily on his two-seamer.

“Yu didn’t have his best stuff by any stretch in the first inning,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said. “And then all of a sudden, you look up, and he’s in the seventh. ... It was a complete turnaround.”

Nick Martinez provided 1 1/3 scoreless innings, bridging the gap to closer Josh Hader, April’s NL Reliever of the Month. Hader slammed the door on his 11th save in as many opportunities. Petco Park, buzzing all night long, erupted.

“They were super loud,” Tatis said. “They brought it today. It was just amazing -- an amazing vibe ... and amazing baseball to be playing like that.”

These two teams will meet 12 more times during the regular season. Perhaps they’ll play a few more games in October. If last season is any indication, the Padres should know that scores aren’t settled in May. The Dodgers, anyway, still hold a one-game lead in the standings.

But the Padres took Round 1. In many ways, it was more of the same, their fourth straight victory over Los Angeles dating back to the NLDS. Except this time, they had a certain swaggering superstar back atop their lineup.

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For the first time this season, the NL West rival Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres met on Friday night. Thanks largely to Fernando Tatis Jr., the Padres chased future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw in the fifth inning, and went on to win the game 5-2 at Petco Park (box score).

Los Angeles took a quick 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning, then Tatis responded with a solo home run against Kershaw in the third and a two-run homer against Kershaw in the fifth. Tatis now has 15 home runs in 38 career games against the Dodgers, and is 7 for 20 (.350) with four homers against Kershaw.

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Kershaw was not especially sharp Friday night. He entered the game with five walks in six starts this season, then walked five batters in 4 2/3 innings against San Diego. It was his first five-walk start since Aug. 1, 2019. Kershaw was charged with four runs on eight hits and five walks in those 4 2/3 innings.

Opposite Kershaw, former Dodger Yu Darvish held the Dodgers to two runs in 6 2/3 crisp and efficient innings. He struck out six and retired 14 consecutive batters spanning the second and seventh innings. Only seven of the 24 batters Darvish faced hit the ball out of the infield.

Tatis returned from his 80-game performance-enhancing drug suspension on April 20. He went 2 for 5 with the two home runs Friday and is hitting .267/.302/.500 with four homers in his 13 games back with the team. The Padres are 9-4 in those 13 games.

With Friday's win, the Padres are 18-15 on the young season. The Dodgers are 19-14 and in first place in the NL West. Including Friday, these two teams will play six times in the next 10 days.

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The St. Louis Cardinals enter the second game of their home series against the Tigers in a state of cascading misery. They're a National League worst 10-23 at this writing, have lost seven in a row, and have dropped the opening game of all 11 series they've played in 2023. Coming off a 93-win season and a division title in 2022, all of that is more alarming than it sounds, and -- to be clear -- it sounds alarming in any context.

Growing out of this is what seems to be mutual frustrations between catcher Willson Contreras, the team's headline free-agent addition this past winter, and the team's manager, front office, and perhaps even pitching staff. Contreras, ankle deep into a five-year, $87.5 million pact with the Cardinals, has mostly delivered at the plate thus far in 2023, and he's also thrived at controlling the running game.

Even so, Contreras has started at catcher in just 23 of the team's 33 games, and he's increasingly seen DH duty. In a presumably related matter, the Cardinals on Saturday added a third catcher to the active roster when they called up Tres Barrera. That led to this:

Willson Contreras says he’s healthy and able to catch. Said his DHing is a “manager or front office decision.” He also said he was surprised to see Barrera called up but he’s excited for him, as a player.

— Jeff Jones (@jmjones) May 6, 2023

Contreras tweaked his ankle sliding into third base during Friday night's eventual loss to Detroit, which may in part explain the current state of things. However, it's not hard to read frustration into Contreras' words. A large part of Contreras' value is that his bat is so special by the positional standards of catchers. As a DH, his bat becomes more ordinary because the offensive bar for adequacy as a DH is so much lower than it is for catcher, the most demanding of positions. As well, current backup catcher Andrew Knizner simply cannot hit major-league pitching at acceptable levels (career OPS+ of 62 and a slash line of .156/.206/.250 this season). Barrera, career OPS+ of 79, doesn't figure to be much better. DHing Contreras necessarily forces into the lineup such a thoroughly lacking bat, and adding to the roster a backup to the backup suggests more of that is in the offing.

Actually, more of that plus significant time in the outfield is in the offing:

The Cardinals aren’t just considering using Willson Contreras in the outfield. They will be. Contreras won’t catch much over the next couple of weeks. He’ll be used primarily as a DH and corner outfielder. More soon on @TheAthleticMLB

— Katie Woo (@katiejwoo) May 6, 2023

Obviously, if Contreras' ankle were an issue, he wouldn't be asked to patrol the outfield grass. He's done so in the past, albeit in limited doses. For his career, he's logged 236 defensive innings at the outfield corners, with most of that coming in left. St. Louis this season has struggled to get good production from left, and compounding matters is that Tyler O'Neill is currently on the injured list with a lower back strain.

So, yes, there's need, but there's cause to believe that Contreras' defensive faculties -- or at least internal perceptions of them -- may also be playing a role. Right now, Statcast rates Contreras as a below-average pitch-framer this season (35th percentile and trending downward in recent games). As well, the struggles of Cardinal pitchers this season when in two-strike counts (they've managed to allow 20 two-strike home runs already in 2023) and the fact that they've fared better with Knizner as the battery mate, at least from an ERA standpoint, aren't helping.

Speaking of which, right-hander Jack Flaherty following his most recent start in which he hemorrhaged 10 earned runs in 2 1/3 innings against an Angels lineup that didn't have Mike Trout in it, said this (via Derrick Goold):

"Two-strike hits, whatever that comes down to. Whatever the hell we're doing as a staff is pretty bad. Way too many two-strike hits today. It was like 2-1 hit, bad count, falling behind. Even if we fell behind, got back in the count, made pitches to get to two strikes then had too many balls hit hard. That's frustrating, throughout our whole staff — throwing pitches that don't make sense."

Emphasis added. While Flaherty went on to cite his own inability to execute, the highlighted portion of the quote above certainly implies that he's displeased with pitch selection. If current frustrations from Cardinals fans are any guide -- not to wander into that particular cornucopia -- then Contreras is proving to be the most frequently cited culprit for the team's mound failures in putaway spots. Contreras is probably acutely aware of this, which may be why he also said this on Saturday:

#STLCards C Willson Contreras on talking to Yadier Molina: “(Molina) said he was watching the games and he said that we're not executing pitches. I'm not blaming anybody. I'm not pointing fingers at my pitchers because I'm on their side. But we just need to be better executing.”

— John Denton (@JohnDenton555) May 6, 2023

Molina, of course, is the recently retired franchise catching legend and a likely future Hall of Famer, and marshaling his words as evidence for your case is indeed a powerful approach within the organization. It can also, however, be seen as a bit of a provocation or perhaps a somewhat withering response to Flaherty's own "bit of a provocation." However you characterize it, all of it suggests a rift among roles -- pitcher and catcher -- that can't afford such a thing.

Of course, pitchers are free to shake off the catcher, and from the outside it's impossible to know to what extent pitch mix and sequencing are scouting-report-driven or even suggested by the dugout or baseball-ops analysts. In addition to a new primary catcher, the Cardinals are also adjusting to a new pitching coach in Dusty Blake, who has been charged with improving the staff's abilities to miss bats and get strikeouts. It takes a while to adapt to all that newness, and the team's uncharacteristically awful start to the season doesn't aid such efforts.

For his part, manager Oli Marmol attempt to head off the perception that this is all a scape-goating of Contreras. Via the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Lynn Worthy, Marmol said Saturday:

"I want to be super clear. We're not losing ballgames because Willson Contreras is behind the plate. I want to be super clear on that. This is a guy that's putting in an amazing amount of work to be able to become more familiar with, one, our pitchers, but also how we do things."

Maybe it's premature to call all of this dysfunction, and maybe it all vaporizes once the Cardinals find a higher level in general. For now, however, it's a troubling bit of discord within a team that can't afford any of that right now.

The Convoy District is known as one of the City of San Diego’s most vibrant and culturally-rich neighborhoods.

In 2020, the area was officially designated as the “Convoy Pan Asian Cultural and Business Innovation District.” Two years later, in August 2022, six freeway signs went up along I-805 that read “Convoy Asian Cultural District” in hopes of encouraging drivers to visit.

It is home to more than 200 restaurants, like longtime staples Jasmine Seafood Restaurant and Dumpling Inn (both of which opened in 1994). Most of them are small, Asian American and Pacific Islander (APPI)-owned businesses.

“When we have family and friends coming in from out of town, they’ll ask where do we get good food? First thing, go to Convoy Street,” Brian Ly told NBC 7.

Ly is one of the owners of Boba Bar. It is located in the heart of the Convoy District, and the same plaza as Jasmine and Dumpling Inn. There is also Kura Revolving Sushi Bar, Uncle Tetsu, Mochinut Donuts San Diego and Iceskimo.

“We get so much foot traffic in this area,” said Ly. “I think being in this plaza with two or three different, big restaurants as a boba shop and a dessert shop, it helps out.”

Ly started Boba Bar with his wife, Tiffany Tran, and her father in 2013.

“He’s from Vietnam, so he knew what boba was,” said Ly. “At the time there was maybe like three shops on this street, so he saw the opportunity and he’s like, ‘hey let’s jump on this.'”

Ly said he and his wife drank boba almost daily, especially in college, when they needed a pick-me-up to get them through long days.

“We drank a lot of boba and we knew a lot about it,” said Ly. “We were almost every day at a boba shop.”

When Boba Bar opened, there weren’t many other places serving boba around Convoy Street. At first, customers would come in curious.

“A customer will come in right behind and be like, ‘hey, what is that you’re drinking?'” said Ly. “It’s a great way for the community to kind of come together.”

Now, boba is considered much more mainstream.

At Boba Bar, they serve everything from teas to smoothies, Vietnamese coffee and instagrammable desserts made on what they call ‘puffles’ or made-to-order waffles with a circle pattern instead of squares.

“If you’re looking for drinks we have like milk teas, taro milk teas, matcha milk teas,” said Ly. “Those are super popular. You’ll find those at almost every boba shop.”

At the end of the day, Ly said their top priority is making sure there is something on the menu for everyone to enjoy.

“We try to take these flavors that are Asian-influenced, or from Vietnam, and we try to modify the flavors so it's palatable to the American culture,” said Ly. “And at the same time, hit the palette of the traditional or the cultural Vietnamese people that come over and they try it.”

The stage was set for the Washington Spirit: a nationally televised home match, a scenic afternoon, a season-best crowd and an undefeated record on the line.

The conditions were perfect for a memorable early-season match, and the Spirit rose to the occasion with a 3-1 victory over the San Diego Wave on Saturday before 12,232 at Audi Field. The win improved Washington, one of just two undefeated teams remaining in the NWSL entering the day, to 3-0-3.

The breakthrough moment came from forward Trinity Rodman in the 55th minute, when she raced past the back line to catch up to a through ball from Ashley Sanchez. Alone with the goalkeeper, Rodman calmly slotted the ball into the right side of the net.

“When you’re dribbling or playing, you can’t hear anyone screaming,” Rodman said. “But when that goal happens, it’s just like ‘boom!’ It’s crazy. It’s such a relief to hear that noise after you do something great, and it makes us feel so supported.”

The young duo connected again 15 minutes later, this time with Rodman feeding Sanchez from the left side. Sanchez caught the cross with her left foot and sent it curling into the top left corner of the net.

By the time Paige Metayer headed in a corner kick in the 79th minute to push the lead to 3-0, Audi Field was a sea of sunbathing, rally towel-waving fans.

“The atmosphere out there was incredible,” said Metayer, a Spirit newcomer who scored her first professional goal. “And it became such a whirlwind for me when that ball hit the back of the net.”

Before the second-half fireworks, halftime brought a feeling of missed opportunity after the Spirit played an entertaining but frustrating first 45 minutes. Washington generated five shots on goal before San Diego (3-3-0) could muster one but went into the break with nothing to show for it.

Perhaps the best chance of the half came when Rodman received a lofted pass on the left side of the box in the 22nd minute. In one motion, she knocked the ball down and made a swift turn, sending her defender to the turf and drawing a gasp from the crowd. Suddenly in space, she slid a cross to an open Sanchez in front of the goal, but Sanchez sent it just wide. It was an opportunity squandered and a glimpse of what was to come.

“Our team is so good at fixing things at halftime,” Rodman said. “We talk about just the littlest details and do such a good job of coming out strong. … When we missed those chances in the first half, we were learning what not to do.”

It was mostly a quiet afternoon for U.S. national team star Alex Morgan of the Wave. With Washington controlling the run of play, San Diego struggled to create momentum. In the 90th minute, as Washington worked to drain the clock, Morgan scored off a rebound to get San Diego on the board.

But that was far too little to ruin Washington’s afternoon.

“It was a special day,” Spirit Coach Mark Parsons said. “It’s been 10 years for me in this league, and there are only a few games I can count on my hands that have felt like this. This one feels really good.”