In 2012, John Teixeira was planning to open a gun shop in San Lorenzo, Calif. As the East Bay Times reported, the county denied his permit as being in violation of an ordinance stating gun stores couldn’t be within 500 feet of a residential neighborhood. Teixeira, claiming the 1998 ordinance violated his own constitutional rights, filed a lawsuit.
A U.S. District Court upheld the ordinance initially. But in 2016, a three-justice panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the ordinance violated the Second Amendment. Earlier this year, an 11-justice panel of the 9th Circuit Court heard the case. The verdict was passed down this week and ruled in favor of upholding the ordinance.
Teixeira’s attorney, Donald Kilmer, was disappointed in the decision. “By definition, our customers and employees and owners of the business all have to be law-abiding citizens,” Kilmer said. “You can’t say the same for a tattoo parlor or an adult bookstore.”
