Arkansas Case on Zoning Laws Being Used to Exclude Gun Shops

In yesterday’s Arkansas Supreme Court decision in Eureka Gun & Pawn, LLC v. City of Eureka Springs, the majority dismissed Eureka Gun & Pawn’s appeal on procedural grounds. But three of the seven Justices opined on the substantive issue; from Justice Shawn Womack’s concurrence, joined by Justices Barbara Webb and Nicholas Bronni:

[H]ad the matter proceeded in its proper posture, Eureka Gun should have prevailed on the merits…. Eureka Gun presented substantial evidence—including from the City’s own planning-commission members and nearby commercial owners—that its application satisfied the ordinance’s factors and that the proposed use was compatible with the surrounding district. And, other than testimony from City officials that they would not approve a CUP [Conditional Use Permit] for any business to sell firearms anywhere in the city, there was no real evidence identifying an ordinance factor that weighed against the CUP….

[The court below] held that Arkansas Code Annotated section 14-16-504(b)(1)(A) {“[e]xcept as otherwise provided in state or federal law, a local unit of government shall not enact an ordinance or regulation pertaining to, or regulate in any other manner, the ownership, transfer, transportation, carrying, or possession of … firearms”}—and the nearly identical section 14-54-1411—”does not apply to the commercial sale of firearms” because reading “transfer” to include commercial sales would produce an “absurd result.” {The circuit court said at the May 16 trial,

I’m going to address some things, and then at that—there’s been argument that 14-54-1411 applies that a municipality can’t restrict the transfer—let me find—the ownership, transfer, transportation, carrying, possession of firearms or ammunition, the Court has not been asked to address that yet, at least, in this hearing, but the Court’s going to find that this statute does not affect the commerce of firearms; it cannot. Otherwise, the city could not prohibit an arms dealer from setting up in a residential area. There would be no restriction; it would be a carved-out exception for only guns, and that is an absurd result. I—I just—it does not—is not applicable in this case.} …

[T]hat reading is inconsistent with basic principles of statutory interpretation. Indeed, the circuit court’s perceived “absurdity” disappears once the zoning authority and firearms preemption statutes are read in harmony.

“Transfer” is not a technical term, and nothing in section 14-54-1411 suggests a specialized or more narrow definition. It naturally includes the conveyance of property from one person to another, whether by gift, sale, consignment, or otherwise. Thus, a commercial sale of a firearm is a transfer of a firearm. Arkansas Code Annotated section 14-54-1411 forbids local regulation of such transfers unless state or federal law provides otherwise.

If the General Assembly intended to exclude commercial firearms transactions from the statute’s scope, or to protect only noncommercial transfers, it knew how to say so. It did not. The plain text therefore encompasses all transfers of firearms, including those occurring through licensed dealers. Yet that preemption can coexist with municipal zoning authority.

Section 14-56-416 empowers municipalities to regulate where particular land uses—such as gun stores—may be located. Section 14-54-1411 regulates what conditions a city may impose on the ownership, possession, or transfer of firearms. Harmonizing the statutes gives full effect to each: a city may designate commercial districts for firearms commerce but may not impose substantive burdens or prohibitions that regulate the transfer itself. The City’s actions here illustrate the point.

Although Eureka Gun satisfied all ordinance factors and occupied the only zone where firearms commerce was allowed, council members testified that they would not approve a gun or pawn shop anywhere in the city. A zoning regime that functionally eliminates all firearm transfers is, in substance, a municipal regulation of those transfers and thus forbidden absent state authorization. The circuit court blurred the line between zoning and regulation, invoking hypothetical “absurdities” that vanish once the statutes are read harmoniously. Nothing in section 14-54-1411 strips municipalities of zoning power; it simply bars them from regulating firearm transfers themselves.

The circuit court’s interpretation, which relied on the absurdity doctrine to narrow an unambiguous statute, effectively rewrote section 14-54-1411. Properly interpreted, the statute applies to commercial firearms transactions no less than to noncommercial transfers, and it operates alongside—not in opposition to—municipal zoning authority. Because the City may decide where firearms commerce may occur but may not decide whether it may occur, the court’s contrary reasoning was legally incorrect.

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