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WVCDL-ALERT Update
January 24, 2011
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WVCDL Sues Cities of Charleston, South Charleston, Dunbar, and Martinsburg |
This morning, WVCDL filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia against the cities of Charleston, South Charleston, and Dunbar, and their respective mayors and police chiefs, challenging the constitutionality and statutory validity of ordinances in each of those cities prohibiting carrying a firearm on city-owned property. Additionally, WVCDL is challenging the constitutionality of Charleston's restrictive handgun sales ordinances. Also this morning, WVCDL filed a lawsuit against the City of Martinsburg, its mayor, its city manager, and its police chief in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, challenging the constitutionality and statutory validity of a Martinsburg ordinance prohibiting carrying a firearm in city-owned buildings. To read more about both of these cases, visit WVCDL's litigation page. |
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Fair & Balanced Story on WVCDL Lawsuits in Charleston Gazette | |
Gun rights group takes on local city governments
By Rusty Marks
The Charleston Gazette
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A West Virginia gun rights advocacy group has gone to federal court to fight handgun laws in Charleston, South Charleston and Dunbar.
Members of the West Virginia Citizens Defense League filed a civil complaint in U.S. District Court this morning challenging handgun laws in the three Kanawha County cities. Plaintiff's attorney Jim Mullins alleges the cities' laws violate the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment right for citizens to keep and bear arms.
All three cities ban the carrying of handguns on city property. Additionally, Charleston has a city ordinance requiring a three-day waiting period before someone can buy a gun within city limits, and limits gun purchases to one per month.
"No criminal or deranged lunatic is going to be deterred from committing a crime on public property by the prospect of a whopping 30 extra days in jail for violating a municipal ordinance prohibiting guns on city property," Mullins, a Beckley attorney, said in a prepared statement.
"Neither will a criminal wait while his intended victim goes through the three-day waiting period Charleston imposes on buying a handgun," he said. "And if you happened to have bought a handgun recently and it was stolen? Well, that same criminal also won't wait for you to become eligible to purchase another handgun under Charleston's one handgun per month rationing ordinance."
In June 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constution ensures that Second Amendment protections apply to states and municipalities. The court held that a near all-out handgun ban in Chicago violated the Constitution.
Although court members suggested city officials could still pass reasonable restrictions on handgun ownership, the court did not define what "reasonable" meant.
The ruling came in the wake of a 2008 Supreme Court decision upholding the right of citizens to keep guns in their homes for protection.
Charleston's waiting period and one gun per month limit were passed in 1993 to try to stop a guns-for-drugs trade going on in the city at the time.
In the 1980s and '90s, drug dealers from New York and other big cities were buying large quantities of cheap guns in Charleston either directly or through local "straw men" and selling them for huge profits back home. They used the money to buy cheap drugs, which they then sold for huge profits in Charleston before buying more cheap guns and repeating the process.
City officials believe the waiting period and one gun limit have been effective in stopping the interstate gun trade.
Members of the West Virginia Citizens Defense League propose stiffer penalties for the criminal misuse of guns or other weapons.
Reach Rusty Marks at [email protected] or 304-348-1215.
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Press Release: WVCDL Files Suit to Challenge Charleston, South Charleston, and Dunbar Gun Control Ordinances |
For Immediate Release Monday, January 24, 2011 Charleston, W.Va. - This morning, the West Virginia Citizens Defense League, 4 individual WVCDL members, and a Kanawha County gun dealer filed a 40-count civil complaint in U.S. District Court challenging the constitutionality of numerous gun control ordinances in the cities of Charleston, South Charleston, and Dunbar. Represented by Beckley-based attorney Jim Mullins, WVCDL and the other plaintiffs are seeking to block ongoing enforcement of separate ordinances in the cities of Charleston, South Charleston, and Dunbar that prohibit carrying handguns on certain city-owned property and a series of ordinances in Charleston that impose severe restrictions on the sale, rental, and other transfers of handguns. In their complaint, the plaintiffs allege that each of the challenged ordinances violate the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Amendment to the West Virginia Constitution, various federal statutes, and West Virginia state law limiting the powers of municipal governments. Plaintiffs' attorney Jim Mullins said: WVCDL and its individual members who have stepped forward today to bring this case are committed to vindicating the right of every law-abiding citizen to keep and bear arms for self-defense and other lawful purposes. No criminal or deranged lunatic is going to be deterred from committing a crime on public property by the prospect of a whopping 30 extra days in jail for violating a municipal ordinance prohibiting guns on city property. Neither will a criminal wait while his intended victim goes through the 3-day waiting period Charleston imposes on buying a handgun. And if you happened to have bought a handgun recently but it was stolen? Well, that same criminal also won't wait for you to become eligible to purchase another handgun under Charleston's one handgun per month gun rationing ordinance. If any or all of the defendants choose at some point to see the light and change their ways, my clients are more than willing to settle with any city that agrees to completely repeal its respective ordinances and fully honor not only my clients'-but every West Virginian's-right to keep and bear arms. My clients hope that the cities of Charleston, South Charleston, and Dunbar will not waste their taxpayers' money to defend their indefensible ordinances. However, along with bringing this case today, WVCDL has drafted and expects to soon have introduced in the Legislature a bill, the West Virginia Gun Owner Protection Act of 2011, that comprehensively revises West Virginia's gun laws expands the rights of law-abiding gun owners and increases the penalties for the criminal misuse of firearms and other weapons. If the Legislature passes WVCDL's proposed West Virginia Gun Owner Protection Act of 2011, West Virginia would have a much stronger state preemption law that would provide additional grounds for the plaintiffs in this case to prevail without the need for the extensive, expensive, time-consuming litigation that will follow if the status quo remains. For the last 3 years, WVCDL-authored bills to strengthen the state preemption law and prevent the need for this lawsuit have been introduced in the Legislature but have gone nowhere. Unless and until the Legislature acts, this lawsuit is the only viable remedy my clients have to defend their legal rights. If the cities of Charleston, South Charleston, and Dunbar refuse to see the error of their ways and the Legislature does nothing to reign in their abuses of power, WVCDL and the other plaintiffs in this case are prepared to litigate this case to its ultimate conclusion, whatever it may be, whenever it may be. We sincerely hope this is a point we do not reach. Today, as WVCDL and its members begin the potentially long journey to justice, they hope the residents and taxpayers of the cities of Charleston, South Charleston, and Dunbar will call upon their elected leaders to do the right thing. More importantly, WVCDL and its members hope the people of West Virginia will open their eyes to the abuses that are occurring in the Kanawha Valley and demand that their delegates and state senators take action now and not leave their Second Amendment rights solely at the mercy of courts that may take years to ultimately decide this case and others like it. WVCDL is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, all-volunteer, grassroots organization of concerned West Virginians who support our individual right to keep and bear arms for defense of self, family, home and state, and for lawful hunting and recreational use, as protected by the state constitution and the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. WVCDL is the largest, active, West Virginia-based gun rights organization. --30-- |
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Press Release: WVCDL Files Suit to Challenge Martinsburg Gun Control Ordinance |
For Immediate Release Monday, January 24, 2011 Martinsburg, W.Va. - This morning, the West Virginia Citizens Defense League filed a 6-count civil complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia challenging a Martinsburg city ordinance prohibiting the possession or carrying of firearms in city-owned buildings. Represented by Beckley-based attorney Jim Mullins, who serves as WVCDL's General Counsel, WVCDL alleges in its complaint that the criminal penalties prescribed in the ordinance are unconstitutionally vague and that the ordinance violates the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Amendment to the West Virginia Constitution, West Virginia's municipal gun control ordinance preemption law, and West Virginia's general law limiting the powers of municipal governments. Mullins said: WVCDL has brought this case and a parallel case it filed this morning in U.S. District Court in Charleston challenging similar ordinances in Charleston, South Charleston, and Dunbar, to vindicate the right of every law-abiding citizen to keep and bear arms for self-defense and other lawful purposes. The ordinances in Martinsburg and the other cities where WVCDL has filed suit today do nothing but deny law-abiding citizens their individual right to the means of self-defense. No criminal or deranged lunatic is going to be deterred from committing a crime on public property by the prospect of a whopping 30 extra days in jail for violating a municipal ordinance prohibiting guns on city property. If the City of Martinsburg chooses at some point to see the light and change its ways, WVCDL is more than willing to settle if the city agrees to completely repeal its ordinance and fully honor every West Virginian's right to keep and bear arms. WVCDL hopes that the City of Martinsburg will not waste its taxpayers' money to defend its indefensible ordinance. However, along with bringing the suits it has brought today, WVCDL has drafted and expects to soon have introduced in the Legislature a bill, the West Virginia Gun Owner Protection Act of 2011, that comprehensively revises West Virginia's gun laws expands the rights of law-abiding gun owners and increases the penalties for the criminal misuse of firearms and other weapons. If the Legislature passes WVCDL's proposed West Virginia Gun Owner Protection Act of 2011, West Virginia would have a much stronger state preemption law that would provide additional grounds for the plaintiffs in this case to prevail without the need for the extensive, expensive, time-consuming litigation that will follow if the status quo remains. For the last 3 years, WVCDL-authored bills to strengthen the state preemption law and prevent the need for this lawsuit have been introduced in the Legislature but have gone nowhere. Unless and until the Legislature acts, this lawsuit is the only viable remedy my clients have to defend their legal rights. If the City of Martinsburg refuses to see the error of its ways and the Legislature does nothing to reign in its abuse of power, WVCDL is prepared to litigate this case to its ultimate conclusion, whatever it may be, whenever it may be. WVCDL sincerely hopes this is a point we do not reach. Today, as WVCDL and its members begin the potentially long journey to justice, they hope the residents and taxpayers of the cities of Martinsburg, Charleston, South Charleston, and Dunbar will call upon their elected leaders to do the right thing. More importantly, WVCDL and its members hope the people of West Virginia will open their eyes to the abuses that are occurring in cities across our state and demand that their delegates and state senators take action now and not leave their Second Amendment rights solely at the mercy of courts that may take years to ultimately decide this case and others like it. WVCDL is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, all-volunteer, grassroots organization of concerned West Virginians who support our individual right to keep and bear arms for defense of self, family, home and state, and for lawful hunting and recreational use, as protected by the state constitution and the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. WVCDL is the largest, active, West Virginia-based gun rights organization. --30-- |
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James M. "Jim" Mullins, Jr., Esq.
Treasurer, Founder, Past President, Legislative Director, and General Counsel, West Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. |
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