WHAT THE COURT GOT WRONG
A FACT-BASED BREAKDOWN OF THE DISMISSAL, THE RECORD, AND THE STANDING ISSUE
This decision did not resolve whether the ordinance is lawful. It stopped the case before the court ever reached that question. The dismissal rests entirely on standing, and when you compare what the court required to how pre enforcement challenges are supposed to work, several problems become clear. This is not about disagreement with the outcome. It is about what the court analyzed, what it did not analyze, and how it framed the issue of harm.
When you read the ruling itself, the court does not say that no evidence was filed. It focuses on something much narrower. It focuses on what it believed was missing from the complaint. The decision repeatedly talks about what “the complaint alleges” and emphasizes that the plaintiffs did not allege a concrete, personal injury. It points out that the plaintiffs are described as law abiding citizens, that they had not been charged under the ordinance, and that the alleged harm was tied to the possibility of facing higher penalties for conduct that is already illegal.
That distinction matters because a motion to dismiss is decided based on the complaint. Courts are supposed to accept the facts in the complaint as true, but they generally do not weigh outside evidence unless it is built directly into that complaint. That creates a disconnect between what may have been filed, such as affidavits, and what the court actually considered. If affidavits were filed showing that the plaintiffs changed their behavior, avoided certain conduct, or adjusted how they act because of the ordinance, that is the type of information that can show harm. But if those affidavits were not incorporated into the complaint itself, the court can treat them as outside the pleadings and ignore them at that stage. That creates a gap between what was submitted and what the court reviewed.
The court’s conclusion is very specific. It found that the plaintiffs did not allege a direct personal injury, did not allege present harm, and did not allege harm that is different from the public in general. It then framed the alleged injury as nothing more than the possibility of facing higher penalties if the plaintiffs were to engage in conduct that is already illegal. That framing becomes the entire basis for dismissal. The issue is not whether harm exists in reality. The issue is whether the court recognized the alleged harm as legally sufficient within the complaint.
There are only two ways to understand what happened. One possibility is that the affidavits and supporting materials were not treated as part of the complaint, so the court limited its review to the four corners of that complaint and found it lacking. The other possibility is that the court saw the filings but did not believe they established the type of injury required for standing. Those are very different issues. One is procedural, meaning how the claim was presented. The other is substantive, meaning what counts as harm.
The decision reflects a series of problems in how standing was applied. The first issue is that the court treated pre enforcement injury as speculative. It focused on the fact that no one had been charged, which effectively turns pre enforcement review into post enforcement review. That is not how these cases are supposed to work. Pre enforcement challenges exist so people do not have to be arrested before they can challenge a law. When a law carries criminal penalties, the threat of enforcement is already there. The injury is not just the arrest. The injury is being subject to that law right now.
The second issue is that the court ignored the concept of a chilling effect. The decision points out that the plaintiffs are law abiding and have not been cited, and uses that as a reason to say there is no injury. That reverses the logic. The reason someone has not been cited is because they are complying. The real question is whether the law is forcing them to change how they act. If a law causes someone to avoid certain conduct because of the risk of criminal penalties, that is a real effect. Compliance can be evidence that the law is working on the person, not that the law has no impact.
The third issue is that the court required an injury that is different from the public in general. Being subject to a law is itself a personal stake. Criminal laws apply to everyone, but that does not mean no one can challenge them. Courts routinely hear challenges to laws that affect the public as a whole. The question is whether the law applies to the person bringing the case. Here, it does.
The fourth issue is how the court framed the injury as something that only happens if someone commits a crime. That assumes the ordinance is valid and that the conduct is properly classified under that ordinance. That is the exact question the case was trying to answer. In a pre enforcement case, the court is not supposed to assume the law is correct and then say there is no injury unless you break it. The question is whether the law itself creates a real risk of enforcement.
The fifth issue is how the court treated the increased penalties. The court acknowledged that the ordinance raises penalties compared to state law. Then it dismissed that change as irrelevant because the underlying conduct is already illegal. That ignores how penalties actually work. The severity of a penalty directly affects behavior. A higher penalty changes the risk. It changes how people decide what they can and cannot do. Changing penalties changes the impact of the law.
The sixth issue is that the court never reached the core legal question. The case is not just about penalties. It is about whether a city has the authority to regulate firearms at all in this way. The court acknowledged that the ordinance mirrors state law but changes the penalties. That is the key issue. If the state sets the rules, then changing those rules at the local level is not neutral. It is regulation. The court did not address that. It stopped at standing.
The seventh issue is that the court applied standing too narrowly. Standing requires a personal stake, not completed harm. The decision reads as if harm must already have occurred, such as being charged or prosecuted. But when a law is in effect and carries criminal penalties, the risk of enforcement is ongoing. That creates a present legal relationship between the person and the law. Requiring more than that raises the threshold beyond what pre enforcement challenges are designed to address.
The eighth issue is that the court treated the case as abstract. This is not a hypothetical policy question. This is a challenge to an active law that carries criminal penalties and applies to specific individuals. The plaintiffs are not asking what might happen. They are asking what the law allows the city to do to them right now.
The ninth issue is that the court avoided the central conflict entirely. The case asks a simple question. Can a city increase penalties for conduct that the state has already regulated. That question was never answered. The case was dismissed before the court reached it.
In the end, this decision did not determine whether the ordinance is lawful. It determined that the court would not decide that question at this stage. The dismissal is procedural, not substantive. It is about who can bring the case, not whether the law is valid. The ordinance remains in effect. The legal conflict remains unresolved. The only thing that changed is where the question gets answered next.
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