Oregon Appellate Court 3-21-12
by: Aalvarez • March 21, 2012 • no comments
Read the full post for a summary of today's opinion:
- Article I, section 27--PCC 14A.60.010(A)--Carrying a Loaded Firearm in Public
Article I, section 27--PCC 14A.60.010(A)--Carrying a Loaded Firearm in Public
In an en banc opinion, the court rejects a facial challenge to PCC 14A.60.010(a), an ordinance prohibiting the carrying of a firearm in a public place after recklessly failing to unload it, holding that it violates neither Article I, section 27, nor the 2nd amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Under the majority's interpretation, the primary concern of Article I, section 27 was to prevent limitations on a person's ability to carry weapons in order to protect self and home. Since the ordinance does nothing to criminalize any conduct occuring in a person's home or prohibit a person from carrying a recklessly not-unloaded weapon in order to engage in justified conduct (reasonable self defense), the provision does not implicate any of the founders concerns.
Additionally, the majority emphasizes that the ordinance falls well within the legislature's authority to protect public safety, a concept "that was understood when the Oregon Constitution was adopted and as it is understood today."
Edmonds dissents, with Brewer, Nakamoto, and Armstrong joining him. Edmonds finds the majority's interpretation incorrect, because its interpretation of the statute is not the interpretation as actually advanced by the city. Under the majority's interpretation:
...a person charged under the ordinance is permitted to testify that he or she reasonably perceived the need to carry a loaded firearm for the purpose of self-defense, and if that testimony, if believed by the factfinder, is sufficient to defeat a prosecution under the ordinance, then the majority has effectively written into the ordinance a self-defense exemption--an exception that the city admittedly did not include among the more than a dozen exceptions it enacted.
As actually advanced by the city, the statute prohibits any possession of a loaded firearm in a public place, unless specifically exempted.
After an extremely detailed exploration of constitutional history, the dissent concludes that the ordinance is unconstitutional because
...of the breadth of the ordinance's definition of a "public place." The framers of Article I, section 27, and the citizens of Oregon who adopted that provision as part of our state constitution, could not have contemplated that a citizen could be prohibited from bearing constitutionally protected arms for self-defense in all public places and private properties open to the public.
