Supreme Court Won’t Hear 2nd Amendment Challenge to Township’s Gun Range Refusal

The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on Oct. 23, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 25 turned away a gun store’s claim that a town’s denial of permission to open a gun range violated the Second Amendment.

The decision came in the form of an unsigned order in the case of Oakland Tactical Supply v. Howell Township, Michigan. No justices dissented. The court did not explain its decision.

Oakland Tactical Supply leased 352 acres in Howell Township where it wanted to construct an outdoor shooting range, but the township denied permission, saying the land was zoned as “Agricultural Residential” and did not permit open-air business uses, according to the company’s petition.

The company applied for a variance but it was denied; although the township has long allowed property owners to fire weapons on their land.

Oakland Tactical Supply sued in federal district court in 2018, but the case was dismissed in 2020 on the township’s motion.

The court found there were “no cases that support the proposition” that “a municipality must permit a property owner (or a property lessee) to construct, and for interested gun owners to use, an outdoor, open-air, 1,000-foot shooting range.”

The company filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and while it was pending in June 2022 the Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. The ruling recognized a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense and provided that firearms restrictions must have a historical analogue to survive constitutional scrutiny.

In the wake of the Bruen decision, the Sixth Circuit vacated the district court’s ruling to allow it to reconsider. The district court did so and again ruled against the company.

The district court found in February 2023 that “the plain text of the [Second] Amendment says nothing about long-range firing or even, for that matter, training more broadly.”

The company appealed and the Sixth Circuit affirmed in May of this year, holding that the wording of the Second Amendment does not extend to training in a particular location or at the “extremely long distances” Oakland Tactical seeks to provide.

In the petition filed Aug. 16, the company argued that the township violated the U.S. Constitution.

“Just as the Freedom of the Press encompasses the concomitant right to purchase paper and ink, the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms encompasses ... the right to take a gun to a range in order to gain and maintain the skill necessary to use it responsibly,” the petition stated.

Three federal courts of appeals have ruled that this right to train requires the striking down of zoning ordinances that impede it, but the Sixth Circuit upheld the township’s zoning, finding it “did not even implicate the Second Amendment.”

The township had urged the Supreme Court in an Oct. 21 brief to dismiss the petition.

Supreme Court review of the case is unnecessary because the Sixth Circuit recognizes that “some training with firearms is protected” and both sides agree that individuals firing weapons for target practice or hunting on public property is not precluded by the zoning ordinance.

“Petitioners do not claim that they are unable to train in Howell Township; rather, Petitioners claim they are unable to commercially train at a preferred location that is convenient for them,” the township said in the brief.

Commenting on the new ruling, Oakland Tactical Supply’s attorney, David H. Thompson of Cooper and Kirk in Washington, told The Epoch Times, “The Second Amendment plainly protects a right to obtain firearms proficiency through training, and we will continue to bring litigation to vindicate that principle.”

The Epoch Times also reached out for comment to Howell Township’s attorney, Christopher Patterson of Fahey, Schultz, Burzych, and Rhodes, in Okemos, Michigan, but did not receive a reply by publication time.