Agenda - Planning Commission - 08/04/2016

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June 25, 2016 l Volume 10 1 Issue 12 Zoning Bulletin keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." The United States Supreme Court has held that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to possess firearms for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self- defense. Here, Teixeira essentially argued that the Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms, included a right to acquire firearms, and that the County's zoning Ordinance infringed upon that right without sufficient justification of a governmental objective. Teixeira maintained that as a result of the 500-foot rule, there were no parcels in the unincorporated areas of the County which would be available for firearm retail sales. Teixeira argued that the zoning Ordinance "[was] not reasonably re- lated to any possible public safety concerns" and effectively "red- line[d] . . . gun stores out of existence." The County argued that, under the Second Amendment, regulations governing the sale of firearms are presumptively valid. The district court dismissed Teixeira's action for "failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted." - Teixeira appealed. DECISION: Judgment of district court reversed, and matter remanded. The United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, first held that the right to purchase and to sell firearms is "part and parcel of the histori- cally recognized [Second Amendment] right to keep and to bear arms." In so holding, the court found such a conclusion to be logical because "[i]f 'the right of the people to keep and bear arms' is to have any force, the people must have a right to acquire the very firearms they are entitled to keep and to bear." The court similarly found that the "services" to be offered by Teixeira's gun shop —including gun safety classes —also implicated the Second Amendment right to keep and to bear arms. The court reasoned that the Second Amendment protects a "right not as connected to militia service, but as securing the militia by ensuring a populace fa- miliar with arms," and thus "to bear arms implies something more than the mere keeping; it implies the learning to handle and use them in a way that makes those who keep them ready for their efficient use; in other words, it implies the right to meet for voluntary discipline in arms, observing in doing so the laws of public order." Having determined that the County Ordinance burdened conduct protected by the Second Amendment, the court noted that did not mean that the Ordinance violated the Second Amendment. Rather, the Ordinance would be valid if it withstood judicial scrutiny (i.e., a test to determine whether the Ordinance's burden on Second Amendment rights was sufficiently justified by a governmental objective). The court 4 © 2016 Thomson Reuters