New Everytown Law Analysis: The Second Amendment Does Not Require Officials to Give Gun Stores Special Treatment During Coronavirus Closures

NEW YORK — Everytown Law, the litigation arm of Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, today released a legal memorandum debunking gun lobby arguments that public officials must exempt gun stores from closure orders affecting thousands of businesses as they work to slow the spread of COVID-19. The analysis, which comes as the NRA and other gun lobby groups continue litigation against state and local governments over their actions during the coronavirus public health crisis, can be read in full here.

“The Second Amendment does not require that gun stores be singled out for special treatment and allowed to remain open during the most significant public health crisis of the last 100 years,” said Eric Tirschwell, managing director of Everytown Law. “As broad laws that apply to thousands of businesses, these closure orders are clearly designed to slow the spread of COVID-19, not undermine anyone’s Second Amendment rights. The courts have made clear that broad, generally-applicable laws like these are constitutional.”

As detailed in Everytown Law’s analysis, emergency closure orders:

• Affect thousands of businesses and are aimed at minimizing person-to-person contact and slowing the spread of COVID-19.
• Do not specifically target guns or gun stores, just as they do not specifically target bookstores, political rallies, houses of worship or other locations that are being ordered closed notwithstanding their connection to constitutional rights.
• Are examples of the sorts of generally-applicable rules that courts have held do not violate a constitutional right despite placing burdens on that right.

The memorandum is available here.