The Second Amendment Foundation and its partners today filed a federal lawsuit asking declaratory and injunctive relief against the City of Glendale, Calif., its police chief and city clerk. The case is known as CRPA v. Glendale.
Joining SAF are the Gun Owners of California and the California Rifle & Pistol Association. They are represented by attorneys Chuck Michel, Joshua Robert Dale and Konstadinos T. Moros of Long Beach, and Donald Kilmer of Caldwell, Idaho. In addition to the City of Glendale, defendants are Police Chief Carl Povilaitis and City Clerk Suzie Abajian, in their official capacities. The complaint was filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Western Division.
“The City of Glendale’s municipal code generally bans possession of firearms and ammunition on any city property, with no exception for citizens with concealed carry permits,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “This ban applies not just to city property, but also publicly-controlled property or public-affiliated private property, with the only exceptions being streets, roads and sidewalks. Such restrictions relegate the right to keep and bear arms to the status of a strictly-regulated government privilege.
“Our lawsuit is blunt,” he continued. “The Glendale ordinance is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has made it clear that the right to keep and bear arms for personal protection extends outside the home. As we note in our complaint, the burden is on the city to prove that all areas falling within the definition of ‘city property’ are so-called ‘sensitive places,’ and they cannot do it.”
As explained in the 24-page complaint, the city has 47 parks and recreation facilities (including four community centers, one golf course, three soccer fields, and sixteen ball fields), playgrounds, eight public libraries, three downtown parking structures and other city-owned or operated parking lots, the Glendale Civic Auditorium and civic center complex, a youth center, an emergency center, undefined “open spaces” and “plazas,” and an unknowable amount of properties in the possession of private companies under contract with the city.
“That broad definition essentially turns much if not most of the city into a gun-free zone where Second Amendment rights do not exist, and that simply doesn’t pass the smell test,” Gottlieb stated. “We are hopeful the court quickly recognizes this and grants our request.”
