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KC3 files lawsuit against the City of Richmond, Ky.

gutshot II

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 1, 2017
Messages
782
Location
Central Ky.
On Tuesday, February 27th, the Mayor, City Manager and all City Commissioners of the City of Richmond, Ky. were served with a lawsuit by the Ky. Concealed Carry Coalition(KC3). The dispute concerns the violation of Ky. state gun laws by the City of Richmond. Richmond attempts to regulate the sale/purchase of firearms by certain businesses within the boundaries of the City of Richmond. This type of regulation is prohibited by Ky.'s "Firearms Preemption Statute" (KRS 65.870). No city or county government is allowed to "enter the field" of firearm regulation in Ky. The Ky. General Assembly has reserved that area of regulation for themselves alone and made it a criminal act to encroach upon that area of legislation. Criminal penalties for local government officials that violate KRS 65.870 can be quite severe and could include jail time.



KRS 65.870 can be seen here:
http://www.lrc.ky.gov/statutes/statute.aspx?id=40556



Officials of the City of Richmond have repeated refused, over a period of several months, to "repeal, rescind or amend to comply" their city ordinance, as required by KRS 65.870 and they have made clear to representatives of KC3 that the City has no intentions of doing so, voluntarily. Since KRS 65.870 took effect in 2013, the Ky. League of Cities has sent out at least four advisories on the duties and responsibilities of city officials under the law. Those advisories were sent to all KLC member/cities. Richmond surely must have received them. Two of those advisories are still available on the KLC website, here:


http://www.klc.org/news_detail.asp?article=1655

and here:


http://www.klc.org/news/2006/Update_on_Gun_Control_Laws



The City of Richmond continues to ignore the state law, ignore the advice of the Ky. League of Cities and ignore the many, many requests of KC3 to come into compliance without any expensive legal action.They have left us no choice and now the taxpayers of Richmond will bear the expense.



Richmond city ordinance #128.01 to #128.99 is the center of the dispute behind the lawsuit.That Richmond city ordinance can be seen in TITLE XI: Business Regulations, Chapter 128, here:


http://library.amlegal.com/nxt/gateway.dll/Kentucky/richmond_ky/cityofrichmondkentuckycodeofordinances?f=templates$fn=default.htm$3.0$vid=amlegal:richmond_ky

All local governments in Ky. are required to operate within the confines of state law and most of them make an effort to do so. KC3 has pointed out violations to dozens of Ky. cities and convinced them to comply with the law without any legal action being necessary. Lawsuits are not our preferred solution and are only used when all other means have failed. However, since KRS 65.870 was amended and strengthened in 2012, KC3 has found it necessary to file 18 lawsuits against a few persistent violators. All of those lawsuits were settled in favor of KC3

KC3 was founded in 1995 and is a grassroots, gun rights advocacy organization with a statewide membership and is a registered 501 (c)(4), non-profit corporation. KC3 is headquartered in Frankfort, Ky.
 

gutshot II

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 1, 2017
Messages
782
Location
Central Ky.
This lawsuit and the ones to follow would not be possible without a grant that KC3 received from NRA-ILA. This dispute has been underway since the summer of 2016 when I posted about reports of "NO GUNS" signs at the Richmond swimming pool and city parks. Unfortuneately, that post and all of my other posts disappeared when my OCDO account was "disappeared". The pool and parks signs were removed in 2017, but it had been so difficult dealing with these people that I got deeper into their business and found this ordinance. I can't believe that they refuse to fix this. All it would take is to remove the word "firearm(s)" from the ordinance and they would be OK. They are just being obstinate. To their way of thinking, they have "given" enough. They haven't "given" anything. They are still not complying with the law. Who knows, if they had been a little more cooperative, I would probably have overlooked this item. It is not the worst violation that I have ever seem, but KC3 is committed to total compliance. Nobody gets a pass.
 

gutshot II

Regular Member
Joined
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Messages
782
Location
Central Ky.
Richmond's local paper, the Richmond Register, has printed a story about this lawsuit in today's edition of their newspaper. You can read the story here:

[url]http://www.richmondregister.com/news/gun-rights-group-sues-richmond-over-pawn-shop-ordinance/article_ece569e0-28a3-11e8-b978-4f77326f57bc.html
[/URL]

The ironic thing about this lawsuit is that it was completely unnecessary. This year State Representative Kim King introduced HB 74 in the House of Representatives. HB 74 does most of the things that Richmond's ordinance does. HB 74 has now been passed by both the House and the Senate and signed by Governor Bevin. It will become law this summer. Richmond could have avoided this lawsuit by repealing their ordinance and then begun enforcing the state law when it becomes effective in the summer. They would have only been without a law regulating this type of activity for about four months.

I would prefer that there be no laws on this matter, but the state law (HB 74) would be legal. The Richmond city ordinance is not. The state has the authority to regulate the sale of firearms. No city or county can do that.
 
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solus

Regular Member
Joined
Aug 22, 2013
Messages
9,315
Location
here nc
[FONT=&quot]Tis interesting the disparities amongst the states in our great country?

ORS 166.427:[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot](1) Whenever a person engaged in the business, as defined in 18 U.S.C. 921, of selling, leasing or otherwise transferring a firearm, whether the person is a retail dealer, pawnbroker or otherwise, buys or accepts in trade, a used firearm, the person shall enter in a register the time, date and place of purchase or trade, the name of the person selling or trading the firearm, the number of the identification documentation presented by the person and the make, model and manufacturer’s number of the firearm. The register shall be obtained from and furnished by the Department of State Police to the dealer on application at cost.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot](2) The duplicate sheet of the register shall, on the day of purchase or trade, be hand delivered or mailed to the local law enforcement authority.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot](3) Violation of this section by any person engaged in the business of selling, leasing or otherwise transferring a firearm is a Class C misdemeanor. [1989 c.839 §16; 1993 c.4 §3; 2001 c.539 §12[/FONT]

https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/166.427
 

gutshot II

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 1, 2017
Messages
782
Location
Central Ky.
The pawn shop law is perfectly legal IF they strike-out firearms or exempt firearms from their local law.
I think I mentioned that fact as a "simple solution" in post #3 of this thread. Otherwise, KC3 would not have involved ourselves in this controversy. The organization does not go about looking for problems of all kinds to solve. We only get involved or concern ourselves about firearms issuses. That was exactly my point when I pointed out the passage of HB 74 in my previous post. KC3 doesn't care about the registering of sold or pawned items, as long as firearms are excluded and we don't care about that, as long as it isn't a local government doing the registering.
 
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gutshot II

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 1, 2017
Messages
782
Location
Central Ky.
Next Tuesday evening, August 28, the Richmond City Commission will hold the second reading and vote for final adoption of an amendment to City Ordinance 128.03. The amendment will remove the word "firearms" from the ordinance.The city has asked that KC3 withdraw the lawsuit that was filed in February. The first reading was done at the last commission meeting on August 14. As required by KRS 65.870, the City of Richmond will be responsible for all "attorney's fees" expended on this lawsuit. Once those fees are paid, there will be no further dispute between KC3 and the City of Richmond. This is exactly the action that KC3 suggested to the City 18 months ago. Had the City done this when it was suggested, they would not have been required to spend anything on this dispute. The amended Ordinance 128.03 can be seen here:

[url]https://www.dropbox.com/s/jvbuut2pg440ccq/RichmondOrdinance128.03.pdf?dl=0
[/URL]
 
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