- The judges will win this one. They are very jealous of their courtroom powers, and they have a huge judicial bureacracy behind them to make sure they keep their "discretion."
- I would be very surprised that there is any state law "requiring," vs "permitting," LEOs to be armed on or off duty, in or out of uniform. (Department policy would mean nothing to a judge.) Jails and prisons leap to mind as places where LEOs, even the ones that work there, are not often permitted to be armed, on or off duty. Even tho these locations are frequented by people who have been put in jail by LEOs, even may hold a grudge about it!
- It will be very hard to convince a judge, and any other judges reviewing his or her decision (see first bullet), that cops who can't remember to keep control of their firearms in the potty should be trusted to keep control of it in the courtroom. But only a few cops make boo-boos like this? Yes but how to tell which ones in advance? Why hasn't the police system weeded them out? the judge will ask...
- Any duty to act as an LEO certainly does not include protecting any one individual...as SCOTUS as ruled a number of times... except for those people who with which the police and the law have a special status or relationship (I forget the exact term). This essentially means people who are detained or in custody -- i.e. prisoners. Not even for people granted restraining orders or protective orders are the police required to do anything.
- Courtrooms already have bailiffs to keep order, and court houses generally have security staff for security...if that is good enough for daily business, then it's hard to rationalize why visiting LEOs MUST be armed... Besides, the judge and DA can be armed, what more could you ask for?
- If anyone has standing to challenge a judge's order barring arms from the courtroom, it would seem to be people who have "the right to bear arms," not people who have a privilege of bearing arms via their position in the government... I am not going to hold my breath on this one tho, when even state college campuses are permitted to ban legally armed citizens