Judge dismisses firearms group's lawsuit over Lincoln ban of guns from city property (2024)

A Lancaster County district judge has thrown out a civil lawsuit brought by a group of Nebraska gun owners against the city of Lincoln that sought to get rid of the city's ban on guns in public places.

In a decision last week, Lancaster County District Judge Andrew Jacobsen agreed with the city's argument that the Nebraska Firearms Owners Association lacked standing to bring the case.

"For plaintiffs to allege standing to challenge the weapons policy, they must allege that they have suffered or will suffer an injury in fact because of the weapons policy," he wrote in the order denying the injunction and dismissing the case.

Jacobsen didn't reach the point where he needed to consider the merits of the case.

In a statement Monday afternoon, Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird said the city was pleased that the case was dismissed, "affirming our work to implement measures that ensure the well-being of everyone who lives in, works in, or visits our city."

“Public safety is my administration's top priority and the impetus for our action to safeguard City of Lincoln employees and community members when they are within the public spaces and properties we manage," she said.

At a hearing in the case in late February, the judge received exhibits and heard arguments in the case involving four gun owners, three Lincoln men and a fourth from Seward County.

Texas attorney Jacob Huebert of the Liberty Justice Center, who represents them and others in a similar case in Douglas County over a similar ban in Omaha, argued the plaintiffs did have standing because the ban has altered their behavior.

Each submitted a declaration saying prior to the executive order they carried their firearms into city parks, on hiking and biking trails and at dog parks.

Theexecutive orders at issue— signed by Baird and Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert — aren't worded the same but essentially prohibit firearms at properties owned, leased or managed by the city, including parks and public spaces.

The mayors signed them April 25, 2023, the same dayGov. Jim Pillen signed LB77into law, allowing Nebraskans to carry concealed handguns without a permit or taking gun-safety training classes.

The law went into effect Sept. 1.

Last year, the Nebraska Firearms Owners Association sought injunctions in the cases filed in Lancaster and Douglas counties.

In February, a Douglas County district judge agreed to temporarily block Omaha's city ordinance from being enforced while the case works its way through the court.

At the hearing in the Lincoln case later that month, City Attorney Yohance Christie focused on standing, saying the group had filed the lawsuit over potential consequences. None of them had been asked to leave and refused.

Only then, potentially, could the person be brought into court for trespassing, he argued.

And, Christie said, the park ordinance has been in effect since 1930, yet the plaintiffs admitted to disregarding it for years by going to parks and trails with weapons.

"The fact of the matter is they never could," he said.

Christie also said there was no criminal penalty attached to the ordinance, and it doesn't require law enforcement to carry it out, unlike Omaha's executive order.

"The executive order is simply a policy that addresses the use and access to city facilities," he said.

Huebert said the judge in the Douglas County case concluded that Stothert's executive order likely was preempted by state law. And he asked Jacobsen to do the same in Lincoln.

Huebert said the city's effort to frame it as a policy issue didn't change the threat his clients face should they attempt to exercise their rights protected by state law.

"LB77 says they're not allowed to regulate firearms. Period. And this is a regulation of firearms," he said.

In the order last week, Jacobsen said mere allegations that the men had visited city parks and trails in the past but no longer do wasn't enough to show an injury to bring the case. They didn't say any enforcement action had been taken against them when they carried concealed firearms in city parks or on trails or that they had been asked to leave or face prosecution.

"The injury alleged by plaintiffs is conjectural, hypothetical, not sufficiently imminent, not concrete in a temporal sense, and therefore insufficient to show an injury in fact," the judge wrote.

For the same reason, Jacobsen found that the Nebraska Firearms Owners Association lacked standing to challenge the city's park weapons ordinance, which was adopted long before LB77, or other city codes that require those selling a firearm to report the sale to the police department and make it unlawful to keep a firearm in an unlocked, unoccupied vehicle.

He said there was no allegation of any actual enforcement of the challenged ordinance or any factual allegations to support a credible threat of enforcement.

To the contrary, Jacobsen said, according to the factual allegations the city ordinance has never been enforced against the four, "notwithstanding plaintiffs' continuous violation of the ordinance over the years."

"Without any factual allegations that plaintiffs have suffered or will suffer an injury in fact due to this challenged ordinance, plaintiffs are without standing to challenge an ordinance merely because they find it confusing," he said.

Therefore, the claims must be dismissed, Jacobsen said.

The Liberty Justice Center plans to appeal the decision.

In a statement Tuesday, Huebert said the court made no judgment on the constitutionality of Lincoln’s weapons ban, just that they lacked standing to challenge the ban.

"We disagree: our clients can no longer carry firearms on city property without facing potential prosecution. We will continue to represent them, and we’re confident that the Nebraska courts will ultimately strike down Lincoln’s gun ban and its other unlawful firearms regulations that are unconstitutional," he said.