A Bay Area community in California has adopted a new gun storage ordinance that it claims is one of the toughest in the state, requiring gun owners to keep their firearms locked up with ammunition stored separately unless it’s “in use”, which could subject the city to a lawsuit by residents and Second Amendment groups.
The city council in Pinole, located a few miles north of Berkeley, included another gun storage mandate in their new ordinance aimed at those traveling with a firearm requiring guns left in vehicles to be disabled with a trigger lock and stored in a locked container in the locked trunk of the vehicle. Though the city’s press release says the text of the ordinance can be found on the city’s website, it wasn’t available to view as of Sunday morning.
There’s a significant issue with the ordinance adopted by the city council, as well as an older ordinance that’s been in place since the late 1970s. The Supreme Court ruled in Heller that a similar ordinance in Washington, D.C. requiring guns to be kept locked up with ammunition stored separately unless being used for “recreational purposes” violated the right to keep and bear arms because there was no exception for self-defense. Pinole’s ordinance doesn’t appear to include a self-defense exception either. In fact, when I was perusing the city’s municipal code, I discovered that the city currently prohibits discharging a firearm in self-defense.
Chapter 09.20.10 of the Pinole City Code declares it’s “unlawful for any person to discharge any firearm, air gun, air rifle, or other gun or device discharging by the use of powder, air, or springs, any bullet or shot of any kind, or sling-shot, in the city of Pinole”, with only three exceptions:
- On any pistol, skeet, trap, or rifle range, the location of which has been approved by the chief of police of the city of Pinole;
- In certain designated areas which have been approved by the chief of police for hunting of migratory game birds; or
- Peace officers as defined in Section 830 of the California Penal Code and acting within the scope of their official duties […]
— Read More: bearingarms.com
