Justice Dept. sues to stop Montgomery County’s firearms ban at public places
by Stephen Dinan · The Washington TimesThe Department of Justice has sued to shut down a broad gun ban in Montgomery County that prohibits even licensed owners from carrying their weapons within 100 yards of schools, parks, recreation centers, churches, libraries and a host of other places “of public assembly.”
Federal lawyers said the county’s law is so broad it makes it nearly impossible for law-abiding gun owners to carry their firearms as they go about their business.
Justice Department lawyers said that runs afoul of the Constitution’s right to bear arms.
“The Second Amendment does not allow local governments to ban law-abiding citizens from carrying firearms in public places as they go about their daily lives,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said in announcing the lawsuit.
The county law was enacted late last month.
The Justice Department said that was surprising, given that it seems to conflict with a new Supreme Court ruling handed down just a month earlier, that invalidated a Hawaii law banning possession of guns on private property open to the public unless the property owner had given prior approval.
In that case, the Wolford decision, the justices said the Second Amendment protects the right of people to carry guns “in the course of their daily routines.”
The Justice Department said the breadth of the county’s law clearly tests the high court’s ruling.
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Among the public assembly locations listed are parks, places of worship, schools, libraries, fairgrounds and conference centers, government buildings, courthouses and polling places.
The area within 100 yards of the sensitive places are also deemed no-gun zones. And the ban applies even in cases where the property owner has consented to weapons being carried, the Justice Department said.
The law does exempt unloaded firearms locked in a case or rack.
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Stephen Dinan
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