Fight over Sacramento County ban on firearms along American River Parkway heats up

A Sacramento judge has issued a tentative ruling that Sacramento County’s prohibition on carrying firearms along the American River Parkway is unconstitutional but stopped short of issuing a final ruling with that finding as lawyers battle over another issue.

In a tentative ruling June 8 in Sacramento Superior Court, Judge Shellyanne Chang wrote that the prohibition on firearms “improperly infringes upon the rights guaranteed by the Second and Fourteenth Amendments.”

But Chang held off on issuing a final ruling to give both sides a chance to argue the matter before her the next day and allow her to issue a final decision.

In a final ruling posted on the court’s website Friday morning, the judge sidestepped ruling on the constitutionality of the prohibition because of an ongoing dispute over whether the case already had been settled with an earlier agreement between the two sides.

Nabil Samaan, the Sacramento attorney who filed the 2018 lawsuit challenging the county’s prohibition, said he believes the tentative ruling signals that the county soon may be blocked from keeping individuals with concealed weapons permits or some other from possessing firearms along the 29-mile parkway.

“This is a huge victory,” Samaan said. “We’re on the way to more freedoms and more personal security and self-defense.”

There are limits to who could carry a firearm under the tentative ruling, Samaan conceded. Law enforcement officers may carry firearms, as could holders of concealed weapons permits and licensed fishermen because of state law allowing for hunters and fishermen to carry an unloaded weapon as they go to and from their activity.

“So, if you’re a fisherman and you’re floating down the American River with a gun in your boat, it would be legal” under the tentative ruling, Samaan contended.

County spokeswoman Kim Nava declined to comment Friday on pending litigation.

At issue is a section of the county code that bans firearms and other weapons unless they are being used in a permitted section of the parkway, such as an archery range.

“No person other than peace officers in the discharge of their duties shall use, maintain, possess, fire, or discharge any firearm, air gun, spring gun, bow and arrow, slingshot, or any other weapon potentially dangerous to wildlife or human safety, except in areas, at times, and under conditions designated by the director for such use,” the section reads. “A violation of the provisions of this section is a misdemeanor.”

A final ruling on the constitutionality of the county’s policy has been put off because of a dispute over whether the two sides agreed in December 2022 to settle the case.

Samaan said he offered the county the opportunity to settle the case for a payment of 99 cents with the understanding that the settlement would include an agreement that the county’s policy be rescinded.

“I sent them an offer of 99 cents with the understanding that the entire prayer of the complaint would be entered in judgment,” he said.

Samaan said the county disagreed that the 99-cent settlement included such a finding and that it was his mistake that led to the confusion. He said he had racked up $1.5 million in attorney’s fees that he agreed to waive if the county conceded it was wrong.

The case continued to wind its way through court until the judge issued her tentative ruling last week.

That ruling found that “the plain text of the Second Amendment clearly covers Petitioner’s intended conduct, i.e., to carry a firearm through the American River Parkway for the purposes of self-defense.”

Chang cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen decision, which struck down a New York state law that made it a crime to possess a firearm without a license.

That ruling allowed for governments to prohibit carrying firearms in “sensitive” areas such as schools and government buildings, and the county argued that the parkway falls into such a category.

“The county argues that because the Park is property owned by the government, the court should conclude it is analogous to government buildings, which Bruen recognized are sensitive places for which regulation and prohibition of firearms is permissible,” Chang wrote in the tentative ruling. “The county asserts that ‘connected to the landscape of the American River are various government buildings, buildings in association with California State University, Sacramento, historical landmarks, among others.’”

But, she wrote, the county did not provide specific evidence to support that argument.

“It is the county’s burden to demonstrate the park is a sensitive place for which a firearm prohibition is permissible,” Chang wrote.

She repeated that finding in her final ruling.

“Given the lack of specific evidence presented by (the county), the court could only speculate as to what activities occur in the different areas constituting the park, an area spanning more than 29 miles,” Chang wrote. “Such speculation is impermissible, as it is the county’s burden to demonstrate the park, in its entirety, is a sensitive place for which the parkwide firearm prohibition is permissible.”

Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California, likened the county’s argument to the notion that New York could declare the entire island of Manhattan as a sensitive area, which the Supreme Court rejected.

“The policymakers who do not want people to carry guns at all are grossly overstepping their authority by declaring these massive areas as sensitive areas when, in fact, none of the crimes that are committed are done so by people lawfully carrying guns, not by fishermen and not by CCW holders,” Paredes said.

In her tentative ruling, Chang also noted that the U.S. National Parks system “permits an individual to possess an assembled or functional firearm while in the ‘system’ if the individual is not otherwise prohibited by law from possessing the firearm, and the possession is in compliance with the law of the applicable state.”

But she agreed with the county’s argument that because both sides had earlier agreed to a settlement she was obligated to “enter judgment accordingly” and that Samaan now must file a motion seeking to toss out that settlement.

“In light of this procedural posture, the court makes no determination as to the merits of the petition and complaint at this time,” Chang concluded in her final ruling.

Samaan said he plans to file such a motion.

He said that when he filed the lawsuit he was the holder of a concealed weapons permit from then-Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones and the head of a mounted patrol unit of citizens who spent time on horseback in the parkway.

“I was the president of the mounted patrol for Sacramento County and was in the parkway 10 hours a week on patrol,” he said. “I wanted to carry my gun pursuant to my weapons permit, but Scott Jones revoked my CCW based on me challenging this law, so it was important for me as an attorney to prove that I have good moral character and I wasn’t breaking the law.”