Continued Judicial Resistance to the Second Amendment

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” According to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, however,acquiring arms has nothing to do with keeping and bearing them. This was the court ’s logic when it ruled in John Teixeira’s case that buying and selling guns was beyond the scope of the Second Amendment.Teixeira sought to open “Valley Guns and Ammo” in Alameda County, California (the East Bay, with Oakland as its seat). The one problem with his plan was a county zoning ordinance that forbids a firearms business from being “within five hundred feet of a ‘[r]esidentially zoned district; elementary, middle or high sc hool; pre-school or day care center; other firearms sales business; or liquor stores or establishments in which liquor is served.’” That left virtually no place in the county where a gun store could practicably be located.After being denied the requisite permits due to complaints of people who may or may not have been within 500 feet of his business ’s proposed location, it became apparent to Teixeira that the zoning rule was, in effect, a ban on gun stores. He sued the county and promptly lost in federal district court. A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit vacated the lower court’s perfunctory ruling and remanded the case with instruct ions to consider the ordinance’s Second Amendment implications and have the county jus...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs