From the Second Amendment Foundation . . .
A federal court has granted a preliminary injunction in a case involving zoning restrictions designed to ban a gun range in Robinson Township, Pennsylvania, the Second Amendment Foundation announced.
The case is known as Drummond LLC v. Robinson Township. Plaintiffs in the case are William Drummond, GPGC LLC and SAF. The lawsuit dates back to 2018, when plaintiffs sued the township and Zoning Officer Mark Dorsey, alleging violation of the Second and Fourteenth amendments.
“We’re happy with the judge’s ruling because this should signal an end to Mr. Drummond’s problems with Robinson Township,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “Government simply cannot use zoning restrictions to put a business they don’t like out of business.
“The judge was forced to issue the ruling after twice having the case remanded back to her by the federal appeals court, where SAF and the other plaintiffs received favorable rulings that the case should proceed,” Gottlieb noted.
Under the judge’s order, “Defendants, their officers, agents, servants, employees, and all persons in active concert or participation with them who receive actual notice of the injunction are enjoined from enforcing Robinson Township Zoning Ordinance Sections 311(D), 601, and 208, Table 208(A).”
In her ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn J. Horan noted, “Although the courts owe ‘substantial deference’ to local zoning decisions, restrictions on rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment…must still satisfy intermediate scrutiny…At this stage and for purposes of the Motion for Preliminary Injunction, the Township has not provided evidence that the challenged Ordinance provisions…in fact serve the asserted government interests of health, safety, and welfare.”
“Gun ranges are a necessary component in the exercise of Second Amendment rights,” Gottlieb observed. “Even Judge Horan recognized this in her ruling, where she quoted the Supreme Court’s decision in Heller that ‘The right to bear arms ‘implies something more than mere keeping; it implies the learning to handle and use them; . . . it implies the right to meet for voluntary discipline in arms.’ In essence, the township was trying to zone out the Second Amendment.
“This court victory is important because it shows your Second Amendment rights don’t stop at your front door,” Gottlieb said. “It’s essential to our mission of winning firearms freedom one lawsuit at a time.”
They are democrat/communists. They will continue to harass Drummond with alterations to the law. The effort is to bankrupt or make it so difficult that he gives up. Hope not but they have proven time and time again.
Invite the city counsel out to the range, and ask them to hold the target.
🙂
this was originally in a very rural area…but people have been building homes around this place and some apparently don’t like the sound of gunfire….
At least ONE somebody should be at that range EVERYday bustin’ a LOT of caps.
we had this problem here a while back.
We live in the county actually, just outside the big city lines. When our area was first built there was nothing around us except for the other homes in the area. There were 75 homes built, each had a minimum of 2 acre lot. Home cost was over $300,000.00. We had a nice area, people knew each other. Some people had purchased extra land to go along with their home so its not uncommon to see someone with up to several acres.
I had my own little firing range I had built up on the back of our property. A 30 foot high hill at the back of it that slopes off into a small creek. Here we can shoot on lad that is zoned agricultural and that’s how we were zoned. Lived there for almost 30 years, when ever I wanted to shoot I just went the the back of our property. We never had any crime in our area, the city did, but it left us alone.
Six years ago, right next to our area the state decided they were going to build “affordable housing” to the east of us. There is about a four acre buffer between this “affordable housing” and our overall area because of the purchases of extra land by the expensive home owners. The people from the “affordable housing” started thinking that land was fair game, homeowners had to build a fence to get the point across and the “affordable housing” vandals would eventually tear down parts of the fence. Before there was deer that roamed the area, it was not uncommon to see deer feeding on your lawn every morning. I haven’t see a deer in almost five years now When this “affordable housing” was complete, within a month after the first people moved in to the “affordable housing” we started having break ins, residents in our area were assaulted by the thugs who lived in the “affordable housing” who would drive through our area drunk basically looking for victims and damaging property until a few of them got shot trying to assault armed residents. When a few of them got shot they stopped cruising our area and break-ins stopped. Now they mostly stay out of our area because a lot of the residents started EDC even at home. Our property values dropped to less than half of what we paid for our homes almost as soon as the “affordable housing” was announced to be built. Many people have moved away and just took the loss.
The county had dual zoned the area to agricultural and residential to have the affordable housing built with federal funds. Due to the way the funds were allocated the federal funds given to the state would not pay for the “affordable housing” if the area was not zoned residential so they dual zoned it.
One day this guy from the state comes along and tells me I need to stop using my firing range. The residents of the “affordable housing” had complained about it, the residents who had complained the most were those who had been caught vandalizing the property of home owners in our area. They started hanging out in the woods at the rear of our property right behind the firing range area and were afraid they would be shot. It started looking like a dump back there, the “affordable housing” residents started using it as a dump site for all their crap because there is a gravel road leading from the highway to the creek at the hill. They created a dump site. I had to pay someone to come in and clean it up, then I fenced.
Fought that state prohibition for my firing range for a while, almost won when they finally said if I got a commercial business license for it I could use it but would be subject to inspection and meeting code. But I dropped it because we decided to build a new home elsewhere. So now I go to a local commercial range. We are in the progress of building a new home elsewhere, plan to move into it the first quarter of 2022. Will just eat the loss on the home if we ever sale it.
A well regulated militia.
Every city, every town, every county, every state should be required to have a Public shooting range.
Some cities are already very public shooting ranges thank to the Democrats.
Discrimination and Gun Control go hand in hand…There I said it Mr. Gottlieb and you should too.
Someone please tell me where the NRA is in this?
Have to ask wayne’s tailor.
In their usual spot… hiding.
The NRA can’t pay Bill Brewer millions to work on this case and get kickbacks, so there’s no benefit in them participating in the case.
Ah PA, NIMBY central, Rust Belt state with delusions of being New England
Olga,
Such nonsense from you. PA is gun friendly. Strongly so, localized hostility by a few municipalities not withstanding.
Meet their governor and AG sometime. It’s not the 2A state it used to be.
O Ye…
I live in PA and am well acquainted with the atrocities who are our Gov. and AG.
I also know we passed a Constitutional amendment limiting the guv’s emergency powers so he cannot issue caprices like shutting down gun shops. The Chairman of our House Judiciary Committee promised no gun control legislation will make it out of committee. This is a solidly pro-gun state outside of a very few jurisdictions.
Within 20 minutes of my house there are 6 gun shops that I know of, 4 Rod and Gun clubs, and two indoor ranges. All very busy.
No body blinks when I open carry….well, one time, a few weeks ago. I posted here on TTAG about it.
Still, I worry about election corruption…
those two…and one has just declared for governor…want to align this state with New York, Connecticut and New Jersey to share personal information about gun ownership and other gun related issues…it’s clear where their sympathies lie…but it’s an alliance most of us would rather avoid….
weird things tend to happen in elections here…those stories just won’t go away…
This is just a preliminary injunction, there still has to be a trial. Not having the benefit of the prior orders and reversals on appeal, nor the language of the decision granting the preliminary injunction, it is not possible at this point to determine whether the municipality will unnecessarily extend this litigation by appealing either the prelim and/or any final injunction, although what is quoted is pretty strong and would counsel against any further legal shenanigans. At some point, one would hope the voters there would get tired of paying all the legal bills and force the municipality to just give it up.
Yep, just a preliminary injunction. But it is a strong one. However, I can see the city considering an appeal. And if no appeal, then what they will probably end up doing is enact some form of ordinance restrictions that will eventually put him out of business via their enforcement and fines (if any).
this is out in the sticks…there are no built-up areas nearby…but I do believe this place has a bit of a history to it…in terms of the previous owner….legal problems here go way back….
Typically, a preliminary injunction is only granted when the party seeking the injunction is likely to win on the merits (although sometimes the party loses). So this is an encouraging signal from the court.
For your edification, when a “preliminary injunction” is ordered by the court, that usually means that th e Judge feels that the people asking for the injunction will most likely prevail.
Robinson Twp. is a suburb of Pittsburgh. The Dems are busy trying to turn Pittsburg into the hellish landscape they cherish so much. It is not surprising the Dem political machine has metastasized into a bedroom community. Still, one third of Pennsylvanian households own guns. And, if I recall correctly, one in twelve Pennsylvanians have a CC permit. Open carry requires no permit.
Some school districts still shut down for the first two days of hunting season.
NB: Open carry ON FOOT requires no License To Carry Firearms. To carry in or on a vehicle, which includes everything from bicycles to boats to riding lawn mowers, you do need a License to Carry Firearms if a PA resident (Who are no longer “any person” since our fellow gun owners refused to support McKown in his case because he was ACCUSED of having “drug paraphenalia”), or a license/permit from any other state if you are not a PA resident.
And neither FOAC nor any other pro gun organization has challenged the McKown ruling or the rewriting of our reciprocity agreements by our communist AG to exclude PA residents from using out of state non resident licenses/permits.
is she still in jail?…a common experience for many of our politicians….
they always forget the “h”….
those two…and one has just declared for governor…want to align this state with New York, Connecticut and New Jersey to share personal information about gun ownership and other gun related issues…it’s clear where their sympathies lie…but it’s an alliance most of us would rather avoid….
Adding another brick in the wall of “Intermediate Scrutiny”.
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