Over the past several years, the scope of Second Amendment’s protections relating to owning and carrying firearms has been clarified by the Supreme Court. In New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022) the Court provided what is now the test for determining whether governmental regulations violate this constitutional amendment.
Following Bruen, the test for determining whether a law satisfies the Second Amendment is as follows: first, it must be shown that “the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct . . .” If so, “then the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct.” Id. at 24. The burden then falls on the government to “justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Id. The Court announced that the state must show its regulation it is apart of a historical “tradition” of firearm regulation to pass constitutional muster.
In the Sixth Circuit, the Bruen analysis has been applied to gun range owners subject to municipal zoning regulations. In Oakland Tactical Supply, LLC v. Howell Twp., Michigan, a property owner was prevented from opening a gun range because local zoning codes restricted the property to residential and agricultural uses. 103 F.4th 1186, 1189 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 145 S. Ct. 603, 220 L. Ed. 2d 237 (2024). The property owner then brought suit alleging that these zoning restrictions violated the Second Amendment. Id.
Applying Bruen, the Sixth Circuit agreed with the Plaintiff that that the plain text of the Second Amendment protects the right to engage in commercial firearms training but stated that the plaintiff makes “no convincing argument that the right extends to training in a particular location or at the extremely long distances Oakland Tactical seeks to provide.” Id. at 1197. Instead, the fact that the Zoning Ordinance permitted indoor and outdoor ranges in other parts of the municipality meant that the Plaintiff’s second amendment rights had not been infringed. Id. at 1198. On the other hand, the court implicitly acknowledged that if a municipality effectively bans commercial firearm training in a given area via a zoning code, that this would trigger Second Amendment protections.
Essentially, the Second Amendment protects commercial gun range owner’s ability to operate in a given municipality—it just does not give them the right to operate wherever they want (at least under current precedent).
If you are curious as to whether the Second Amendment protects the operations of your business against zoning codes in your municipality, give us a call. The experienced attorneys at Dalton & Tomich, PLC would be happy to review whether your activity is covered by the Second Amendment.
