The Ninth Circuit has a well-earned reputation as one of the most liberal courts in all the land, but in February, a three-judge panel struck down the part of California’s concealed-carry permitting law that requires applicants to submit a specific reason why they should be allowed to have a firearm upon their person in public. Most counties held back on loosening their permitting procedures while the decision goes through the appeals process, but a couple of counties dove right in with issuing permits to all law-abiding citizens. In Orange County, it took barely a month for more than 500 applications to roll in, and that evidently wasn’t just an initial rush but rather the beginning of a sustained pattern:

In the two months since the court sided with a group of gun owners and found California’s law on concealed-weapons permits unconstitutional, nearly 4,000 residents in this county of 3.1 million people have applied for one, eight times the number usually logged in a year. While no permit is required to own a gun, California residents must obtain one to carry a concealed weapon outside their home or business. The surge in Orange County and, to a lesser extent, a handful of other counties stunned law enforcement officials and offered a striking demonstration of the frustration of California gun owners. … The ruling by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, one of the most liberal appeals courts in the nation, sets up a potential battle over gun control before the Supreme Court. If the full Ninth Circuit court upholds the panel’s decision — which is hardly a foregone conclusion — the Supreme Court is likely to take the case, to reconcile the conflicting decisions of different circuit courts. … The Ninth Circuit panel’s ruling was appealed, and has been stayed. Nonetheless, Orange County has blazed ahead. It has spent $1.6 million to hire 14 additional part-time workers, many working through the weekend, in response to the crush of applications, which has overwhelmed county telephones and office workers. There is now a 30-month wait to schedule the required in-person hearing to obtain a permit.

And San Diego county had almost 1,200 applications in March alone, up from their typical 50 applications a month — and speaking of background-check backlog, the federal government has been overwhelmingly inundated lately, too, right along with the national trend of rising firearms production. Supply following demand, ya’ll: