The NRA filed a lawsuit Friday seeking to have gun stores in California deemed essential businesses so they can remain open during the state’s coronavirus lockdown.
The Sacramento Bee reports: [Gov. Gavin] Newsom is among as the defendants listed in the lawsuit, as is Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who on Thursday issued a statement that gun stores in the county are not an essential business and that they must close to the general public. The NRA, along with several other plaintiffs including two individuals, filed the lawsuit Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Newsom has left the matter of whether firearm retailers are essential to the discretion of county sheriffs. “Municipalities who target lawful gun stores for closure aren’t promoting safety—by weaponizing their politics to disarm you and your loved ones, these shameless partisans are recklessly promoting a gun-control agenda that suffocates your self-defense rights when you need them most,” said Jason Ouimet of the NRA. The lawsuit contends that Newsom’s order, and Villanueva’s enforcement of that order, is depriving lawful gun owners of their Second Amendment rights.
