California zoning law banning gun shops is challenged in Supreme Court filing

[The Legion]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/01/09/california-zoning-law-banning-gun-shops-is-challenged-in-supreme-court-filing.html

 

Published January 09, 2018

FoxNews.com

Gun rights groups have filed a petition with the Supreme Court in the hopes that it would consider a controversial appeals court decision that limits where gun stores can open within one county in California.

Businessmen John Teixeira, Steve Nobriga and Gary Gamaza joined the Calguns Foundation, Second Amendment Foundation and California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees in the lawsuit first filed in 2012 that challenged an ordinance in Alameda County that prohibits gun stores from being located within 500 feet of areas that include a residentially zoned district. 

Teixeria and his colleagues claim the law prevented them from opening a gun shop in San Lorenzo. The plaintiffs maintain in their appeal that this zoning law is a violation of Second Amendment rights.

 

“You simply cannot allow local governments to ignore the Second Amendment because they don't like how the Supreme Court has ruled on the amendment twice in the past ten years,” Second Amendment Foundation founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb told Fox News. “You shouldn't be able to zone the Second Amendment out of the Bill of Rights.”

Teixeira and company also said they determined there was not a single lot within the county that met the ordinance’s requirement of 500 feet.

“Local neighbors who live eight lanes across an interstate and the anti-rights politicians that cater to them can't redline gun stores and the right to buy arms out of existence,” Calguns Foundation Chairman Gene Hoffman said in a statement also provided to Fox News. “Since this case was filed multiple local city and county governments have used unconstitutional zoning laws to stop new gun stores from opening and close down existing gun stores. If this was a bookstore or an abortion clinic, the Ninth Circuit would not have hesitated in striking this zoning regulation unanimously.”

Back in October, an 11-judge panel in the court of appeals upheld the county ordinance with a majority saying in their ruling that the law did not violate the Second Amendment right to bear arms of would-be gun owners because there were other stores in the county where they could buy a gun.

“Gun buyers have no right to have a gun store in a particular location, at least as long as their access is not meaningfully constrained," Judge Marsha Berzon said at the time.

The majority also rejected the argument that gun sellers' Second Amendment rights were violated, saying there is no constitutional right to sell guns.

The ruling overturned a decision made the previous year by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit that said the Second Amendment extends to gun stores and requires governments to justify restrictions on them.

That panel in a 2-1 decision said Alameda County had to present evidence to justify the restriction on gun store locations.

[SWCUMBERLAND]

Would that  the YesCalifornia initiative was still on the ballot; we could see an end to these silly-season  shenanigans.

The Ninth Circus Court of Schlemiels is infamous for its left leaning. That it would endorse de-facto redlining, and other stupidities that supposedly were rightfully smashed during the civil rights movement,  doesn't surprise me a bit.

[Oh Shoot]

Ya know, here in the Patron State of Shootin Stuff,  cities/counties are allowed to ban shooting ranges entirely.

- OS

[SWCUMBERLAND]

1 hour ago, Oh Shoot said:

Ya know, here in the Patron State of Shootin Stuff,  cities/counties are allowed to ban shooting ranges entirely.

- OS

FIne. Let them, and see how fast the parties in ? stay in office.

 

 This is not about ranges, this is about the mere stores in which to sell. Redlining isn't a ban, it's a damned sneaky piece of crap. Not to mention prior restraint and restraint of trade.

 

[Oh Shoot]

1 hour ago, SWCUMBERLAND said:

FIne. Let them, and see how fast the parties in ? stay in office.

Knoxville has banned them like forever, hasn't seemed to be a political issue here. Long history of Republican mayors here, though currently a Dem, in her second term.

- OS

[Sunfish]

Shooting ranges seems to be a on again off again hot topic in Sumner Co. The county has pulled the zone card and TVA pulled the plug entirely. Even the surrounding counties like Trousdale and Macon are resistant. So in line with the topic California is not the only place full of the not here's.   

[Omega]

Ranges are a complex issue, specially open ranges.  You have safety and noise issues to consider along with armed people.  I know, to you and I it's no issue, but to non-shooters it may be.  Gun stores may have a few issues as well, and with all the recent burglaries it just adds another element.  But to target them specifically is IMHO, against the 2A, specially to ban them outright.  I can see having open zoning meetings to have the neighborhood oppose a permit, but to regulate them out of existence is a no-go.