Nordyke v. King Litigation

On September 24, 2009, an eleven-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held a rehearing en banc in Nordyke v. King, a case which raises a number of important Second Amendment jurisprudence issues that remain unresolved following the Supreme Court’s landmark 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller. In Nordyke, plaintiff gun show promoters challenged an Alameda County ordinance prohibiting the possession of firearms or ammunition on County property. The plaintiffs allege that, as applied to them, the ordinance violates the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, and Fourteenth Amendment equal protection.

The en banc court reheard the decision of a three-judge panel issued on April 20, 2009. In that opinion, the Ninth Circuit became the first federal appellate court to hold that, after Heller, the Second Amendment applies against state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment. The court concluded, however, that the ordinance did not violate the Second Amendment because it did not “meaningfully impede the ability of individuals to defend themselves in their homes with usable firearms, the core of the right as Heller analyzed it.”  LCAV developed this summary and analysis of the Nordyke decision.

The Nordyke court’s conclusion that the Second Amendment applies against state and local governments diverges from Second Circuit and Seventh Circuit decisions reaching the opposite conclusion. LCAV is tracking and analyzing post-Heller Second Amendment cases.

Resources:

• LCAV’s initial and supplemental amicus briefs filed in Nordyke v. King in 2008

• Summary and analysis of Nordyke v. King decision issued on April 20, 2009

• Summary and analysis of District of Columbia v. Heller

• LCAV’s Second Amendment materials, including post-Heller litigation analysis

• LCAV publication: "Gun Regulation and the Second Amendment"