On Tuesday, March 16, 2010, the Emeryville City Council ("ECC") considered on second reading an ordinance drafted by the Legal Community Against Violence ("LCAV"), which sets out a litany of regulations for an already overly regulated group, firearm and ammunition vendors. (See article below for details of proposed ordinance).

The decision was unanimous to reject all provisions of the proposed LCAV ordinance that regulate ammunition vendors (this includes the AB 962-like ammunition provisions), and to pass on first reading all provisions as they relate to firearm vendors.

The decision came after a long and passionate public comment period, in which dozens of speakers participated, as well as an admonishment from the City Attorney to the ECC that a good way to limit exposure to liability would be to remove all regulations on mere ammunition vendors who do not sell firearms.

The City Attorney’s admonishment to the ECC was largely based on legal arguments set forth in a letter submitted by the law firm of Michel & Associates, PC on behalf of the NRA and CRPA. (Said letter is available for viewing below). The City Attorney met in Closed Session with the ECC prior to the public hearing to discuss the letter, and then spent several minutes after the public comment period on the matter to provide his analysis thereof. Interestingly, the City Attorney apparently did not find the remaining arguments raised by Michel & Associates in the NRA/CRPA letter to be convincing, despite the extensive and undeniable legal support demonstrated to support those arguments.

There were indications from some councilmembers that the public speakers opposing the LCAV ordinance helped to convince the ECC that the threat of litigation was legitimate. The dozens of public speakers were more or less divided equally as to whether they supported or opposed the proposed LCAV ordinance. Attorneys for LCAV, as well as representatives for the Brady Campaign and some Emeryville residents spoke in support of the LCAV ordinance. Those who spoke in opposition ranged from members of NRA Members Councils and frequenters of the pro-gun web forum Calguns, to random, unaffiliated residents of Emeryville.

The ECC’s rejection of portions of LCAV’s ordinance constituted an amendment thereto, which requires them to restart the process for passing an ordinance. They considered the Tuesday, March 16, 2010 hearing to be the first-reading of the amended LCAV ordinance. Thus, the remaining provisions will not become law in Emeryville until they pass second reading, which is currently scheduled for April 6, 2010.

This can be considered a partial, temporary victory at this point. "Partial" because we were successful in convincing the ECC to reject the regulations as to ammunition vendors. "Temporary" because the ECC could always amend again to reintroduce the provisions regulating ammunition vendors if LCAV convinces them to. The good news is that, just like LCAV has an opportunity to explain to the ECC why they should reintroduce the ammunition vendor regulations, we have the same opportunity to make our case to the ECC that the remainder of the ordinance should be rejected along with the ammunition provisions.