Opinion ID: 616740
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Walters's Second Amendment Claim

Text: In his second and final point on appeal, Walters contends that the district court erred in granting summary judgment on his claim that the City's and Chief Wolf's conduct also violated his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Walters bases his contention on the Supreme Court's recent Second Amendment decisions in Heller and McDonald. The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that [a] well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. In Heller, the Supreme Court invalidated a District of Columbia ordinance generally prohibit[ing] the possession of handguns, 554 U.S. at 574, 128 S.Ct. 2783, concluding that it deprived District residents of their rights under the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms, id. at 635, 128 S.Ct. 2783. Specifically, although the Court d[id] not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis . . . of the full scope of the Second Amendment, id. at 626, 128 S.Ct. 2783, it did examine the Amendment's history extensively, concluding that all of [the Second Amendment's] elements together coalesce to guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation, id. at 592, 128 S.Ct. 2783. In McDonald, the Court made this Second Amendment guarantee applicable to the states via the Fourteenth Amendment and reiterated Heller 's reasoning that individual self-defense is `the central component ' of the Second Amendment right. 130 S.Ct. at 3036 (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 599, 128 S.Ct. 2783). Here, the district court rejected Walters's Second Amendment claim. In doing so, the court first noted that Heller left untouched `longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.' Walters, 2010 WL 4290105, at  (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 626, 128 S.Ct. 2783). But the quoted language is inapposite because Walters is not a felon, mentally ill, or otherwise forbidden from lawfully possessing his personal firearm for personal protection. Nevertheless, in Heller, the Court recognized that the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. 554 U.S. at 626, 128 S.Ct. 2783. Here, the district court concluded that  Heller and McDonald did not establish the right to possess a specific firearm that plaintiff asserts here. Walters, 2010 WL 4290105, at . The district court, in essence, determined that Walters must do more than show that the City kept him from possessing one particular firearm to establish a violation of the Second Amendment; Walters must also show that the City kept him from acquiring any other legal firearm. See id. In support of its summary judgment order, the district court relied on Garcha v. City of Beacon, 351 F.Supp.2d 213 (S.D.N.Y.2005), a pre- Heller and McDonald case in which [t]he district court noted that `the right to bear arms is not a right to hold some particular gun.' Walters, 2010 WL 4290105, at  (quoting Garcha, 351 F.Supp.2d at 217); see also McGuire v. Vill. of Tarrytown, No. 08 CIV.2049(KTD), 2011 WL 2623466, at  (S.D.N.Y. June 22, 2011) (slip copy) (reaffirming Garcha 's holding and citing Walters, 2010 WL 4290105, at ). In Garcha, city police arrested the plaintiff in his home after answering a call about a domestic dispute. 351 F.Supp.2d at 214. Police seized a registered handgun that the plaintiff owned lawfully, as evidenced by a New York State pistol permit. Id. After the plaintiff's criminal charges were resolved, he attempted to regain possession of his pistol from the city but could not because the city destroyed the firearm pursuant to a city court order. Id. at 215. The plaintiff disputed whether the city had in fact destroyed the right weapon; he contended that the weapon destroyed had a different serial number than the one he sought to have returned. Id. The plaintiff's pro se complaint was couched in Second Amendment terms, but the district court treated the complaint as one actually sounding in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Id. at 217. The court dispensed with his Second Amendment claim by concluding that the Amendment's protections were not implicated because the `right to bear arms' is not a right to hold some particular gun and the plaintiff was not prohibited from acquiring another weapon. Id. The court then concluded that the plaintiff had no procedural due-process claim because the city had given him notice of the hearing at which the fate of the gun was decided, and that he attended the hearing at which Judge Pagones ordered the weapon destroyed. Thus . . . plaintiff was accorded all the process he was due. Id. The district court also cited Bane v. City of Philadelphia, Civil Action No. 09-2798, 2009 WL 6614992 (E.D.Pa. June 18, 2010) (slip copy), a post- Heller and pre- McDonald case, as persuasive authority for its holding. Walters, 2010 WL 4290105, at . In Bane, police arrested the plaintiff following their call to address a conflict between the plaintiff and a neighbor. 2009 WL 6614992, at . Police took a handgun from the plaintiff at that time; thereafter, police removed a second firearm and ammunition from the plaintiff's residence following a subsequent search commenced with the plaintiff's consent. Id. Following dismissal of the charges, the plaintiff filed a pro se complaint against numerous individuals and entities seeking, among other things, damages and the return of his confiscated weapons. Id. at . In dismissing the plaintiff's claims, the district court determined, in relevant part, that the plaintiff had no Fourth Amendment claim because he was lawfully arrested pursuant to probable cause and had no Fourteenth Amendment claim because he did not avail himself of an available post-deprivation remedy provided by statute. Id. at -8. As to his Second Amendment claim, the court concluded that his argument was misplaced. Specifically, the court stated: In this case, the police seized the first firearm as an instrumentality of a crime. Plaintiff gave permission to Special Agents Meissner and Bonner to seize the second firearm and the ammunition. State law also affords Plaintiff the opportunity to apply for the return of the seized items. No government official is barring Plaintiff from obtaining a firearm and none is preventing Plaintiff from availing himself of the procedure for the return of his firearm. Moreover, no law has been cited that infringes upon Plaintiff's right to obtain a firearm. The Second Amendment does not bar police from seizing the items taken in this case. Id. at  (footnote omitted). Like the plaintiffs in Garcha and in Bane, Walters seeks the return of a seized firearm employing arguments that implicate both the Fourteenth Amendment and the Second Amendment to the Constitution. However, unlike those plaintiffs, Walters has shown a Due Process violation under the Fourteenth Amendment. We believe Walters's valid Due Process claim addresses the gravamen of his complaint against the City and Chief Wolf; Walters seeks a meaningful procedural mechanism for return of his lawfully seized firearm enabling him to exercise the individual right of self-defense protected by the Second Amendment. On this record, however, we hold that Walters has not established that the City and Chief Wolf have violated his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. The defendants' policy and action affected one of Walters's firearms, which was lawfully seized. The defendants did not prohibit Walters from retaining or acquiring other firearms. See Bane, 2009 WL 6614992, at . We do not foreclose the possibility that some plaintiff could show that a state actor violated the Second Amendment by depriving an individual of a specific firearm that he or she otherwise lawfully possessed for self-defense. However, on this record, Walters has failed to make such a showing. Thus, the district court did not err in concluding that Walters's Second Amendment claim fails as a matter of law, and we affirm accordingly.