We’ve reported in the past how even though a Memphis, Tennessee, city gun ordinance appears to run afoul of the state’s firearms preemption law, city leaders continue to cling to the restriction.
Now, a court has ruled on the ordinance, and it’s not good news for the gun-ban advocates on the city council.
Earlier this year, the Memphis council passed Ordinance No. 5908, which not only allowed police to seize firearms without a warrant or prior notice based on vague “risk” claims, but also required a local permit to exercise Tennessee’s permitless carry law, banned the sale and transfer of so-called “assault weapons,” and imposed other local gun control. Gun Owners of America quickly filed a lawsuit, Timmermann v. City of Memphis, arguing that the ordinance violates the state’s strong preemption law.
In late October, the Chancery Court of Tennessee for the 30th Judicial District at Memphis ruled that the restrictions contained in the ordinance were not only unlawful, but entirely void.
“The court notes that the Ordinance and those who proposed it engaged in ‘virtue signaling’ in that the Ordinance is as dead as a proverbial doornail as a matter of Tennessee law,” the ruling stated. “The HRA provides that ‘no charter provision … shall be effective if inconsistent with any general act of the General Assembly.’ The Ordinance, as written, ‘is ineffective insofar as it ‘is inconsistent with any general act of the General Assembly.’”
Tennessee’s firearms preemption laws states, “The general assembly preempts the whole field of the regulation of firearms, ammunition, or components of firearms or ammunition, or combinations thereof including, but not limited to, the use, purchase, transfer, taxation, manufacture, ownership, possession, carrying, sale, acquisition, gift, devise, licensing, registration, storage, and transportation thereof, to the exclusion of all county, city, town, municipality, or metropolitan government law, ordinances, resolutions, enactments or regulation.”
Erich Pratt, GOA senior vice president said Memphis leaders knew the ordinance was illegal from the first, but passed it anyway.
“Memphis may be known as ‘Bluff City,’ but this ridiculous ordinance is a textbook example of a city passing an illegal law just to make a political point,” Pratt said in a news release announcing the ruling. “Of course, Memphis was bluffing—and waved the white flag the moment GOA walked into court. The judge simply read their surrender out loud. Litigation like this is critical to defending law-abiding gun owners from reckless and unconstitutional actions by local politicians. Memphis’s deceitful ‘virtue signaling’ endangered residents and visitors alike, exposing them to unlawful prosecution. Such abuses have no place in a constitutional republic.”
John Velleco, executive vice president of the Gun Owners Foundation (GOF) said the court decision put city leaders in their place.
“Memphis just got schooled in Gun Law 101: You can’t ‘virtue-signal’ your way around a state preemption statute,” he said. “The City admitted its ordinance is illegal, the judge branded it ‘dead as a proverbial doornail,’ and the court stamped it ‘not enforceable—full stop.’”