Opinion ID: 199885
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Freedom of Association Challenge to Class A Licensing Provisions

Text: 80 Relying on the Supreme Court's recent decision in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 530 U.S. 640, 120 S.Ct. 2446, 147 L.Ed.2d 554 (2000), the plaintiffs also allege that the restriction of Class A licenses to incorporated gun clubs with at least one shareholder forces them to associate with members of such clubs, in violation of their associational rights under the First Amendment. The plaintiffs insist that freedom of association ... plainly presupposes a freedom not to associate. Id. at 648, 120 S.Ct. 2446 (internal quotation marks omitted). 81 Dale is inapplicable here. In that case, the state of New Jersey required the Boy Scouts to accept gay Scout leaders, which would, at the very least, force the organization to send a message, both to the youth members and the world, that the Boy Scouts accepts homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of behavior. Id. at 653, 120 S.Ct. 2446. In this case the Commonwealth is only imposing a procedural, formal requirement on the structure of an organization. The statute neither requires nor even suggests any forced association of gun owners with anyone of differing views. 82 Furthermore, as the Commonwealth points out, requiring a club to obtain a license in order to enjoy a narrow range of privileges relating to large capacity weapons does not implicate any constitutionally protected right of association because it does not involve ... protected associative activity. Like an ordinance restricting attendance at certain dance halls to persons of a certain age, this regulation simply does not implicate the First Amendment. See City of Dallas v. Stanglin, 490 U.S. 19, 24, 109 S.Ct. 1591, 104 L.Ed.2d 18 (1989) (holding that the dancing regulated by the municipal ordinance simply [does] not involve the sort of expressive association that the First Amendment has been held to protect). The plaintiffs are not being forced to join any association that espouses a political viewpoint, and are not required to permit persons whose viewpoints they find objectionable to join their own association. Therefore, their First Amendment challenge to the Class A licensing provisions is meritless.