Tucson Standard

Less than two months on the books, a local anti-gun rights ordinance that fines gun owners for not reporting stolen or missing firearms faces a stiff legal challenge—one that argues that the ordinance violates both the state and federal constitutions, and the authority of the Arizona Legislature to regulate firearms in the state.

The Goldwater Institute filed a lawsuit in Superior Court on April 26 to block the ordinance approved on March 4 by the Pima County Board of Supervisors. Goldwater staff attorney Parker Jackson said the law is not just a violation of fundamental rights, but one that completely misses its target.

“The new reporting ordinance isn’t just illegal it takes aim at the wrong people,” Jackson told the Tucson Standard. “Rather than target criminals who steal firearms, the new requirement revictimizes law-abiding gun owners who experience the loss or theft of a firearm. Some may not even realize they are victims until much later.”

Goldwater filed the suit on behalf of Air Force veteran Chris King and the Pima County-based Arizona Citizens Defense League.

Effective 30 days after its March 4 approval, the law requires anyone who knew or reasonably should have known that a gun had been stolen or lost to report it to the local authorities within 48 hours of discovering the missing weapon, with failure to do so would resulting in a fine of up to $1,000 for each violation.

Jackson said the move by the supervisors is a upshot of a fight over gun rights that the left has been preparing for over the last few years.

“Public records obtained by the Institute show that the Board of Supervisors, led by District 1 Supervisor Rex Scott and Board Chair Adelita Grijalva, has been gearing up for this fight for more than two years, coordinating with left-wing activist groups, attorneys, and other elected officials to undermine Arizona’s broad protections for the rights to keep and bear arms,” Jackson wrote on the Institute’s website.

“Now, after years of trying to ban gun shows at the county fairgrounds, Pima County has ignored state law and gone after law-abiding gun owners who are victims of loss or theft,” he added.

Count 1 of the complaint cites that both the U.S. and Arizona constitutions guarantee citizens the right to keep and bear arms.

“As such, the Arizona Legislature has taken—and reinforced—measures to prevent a regulatory patchwork across the state by expressly preempting all local firearms-related rules, ordinances, and regulations, with very narrow and defined exceptions,” according to the complaint. 

Count 2 states that the Arizona Legislature has declared that the regulations of firearms is a statewide concern, and it has expressed its intent to preempt “firearms regulation in this state” and thereby “limit the ability of any political subdivision of this state to regulate firearms.”

The Institute is asking the court to put a hold on the mandate through a preliminary injunction.

In a separate defense of the Second Amendment, Goldwater teamed up last year with the Washington D.C.-based Cato Institute in filing a brief on a gun rights case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The case involves a federal law that prohibits anyone who has been subjected to a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a firearm. The court heard oral arguments in November.

The case gives the court an opportunity to expand on a decision made last year that that prescribed a new standard for modern gun control laws to be “consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and historical understanding.”

“It’s certainly reasonable to want to keep violent criminals from using guns, but as we argue in the brief, this law goes far beyond reasonable regulations,” Goldwater said in a statement.