The fight to defend Second Amendment rights is not confined to Washington, D.C., or even to the halls of state capitals. Each day, battles play out in communities across the country in fights big and small, from the U.S. Supreme Court to a condominium board debating if and where firearms can be possessed on private property. Anti-gun zealotry can be found virtually anywhere decision-making bodies exist.
Recent reports from Florida remind us of these local fights with potential national import. In Port St. Lucie, a homeowner’s association (HOA), Tradition Community Association, recently approved a rule banning lawful carry of firearms (including concealed carry) in common areas of its community, such as clubhouses, recreation areas, parks, and trails, as well as other gathering spaces. The only exceptions to the rule would be private rights-of-way and sidewalks, in vehicles, and for law enforcement. Ultimately, the firearm ban would apply to everyone within the community’s boundaries, even residents and visitors with valid concealed carry permits.
Within days, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier issued a warning letter to the HOA indicating the rule violates a state law that prohibits employers, including private employers, from discriminating against employees or invitees based on their latter’s lawful exercise of the right to carry. According to Uthmeier:
“Under section 790.251(4)(e), the Association, as a registered not-for-profit corporation with employees, is a private employer. Association staff and independent contractors—e.g., the general manager, property manager, assistant property manager, administrative assistant, accounting specialist, Town Hall venue coordinator, and maintenance workers—are all employees under the statute and are authorized to carry a concealed firearm.”
“Therefore, the Association’s employees cannot be terminated or discriminated against for exercising their constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”
“Similarly, any person visiting the common areas—residents, potential residents, and guests alike—are invitees under the statute and cannot be expelled for exercising their constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”
Uthmeier gave the Association a deadline of June 1st to provide confirmation that the Association will not enforce its policy or risk facing legal action from his office.
In addition, Port St. Lucie Police Chief Leo Niemczyk explained in a statement that his office’s role is to enforce state law rather than a homeowners association’s rules and that he intends to fully support constitutional rights. He emphasized that violations of the HOA’s new firearms policy are not criminal violations and will not be enforced by city police.
Over the past several years, the state of Florida has notably expanded firearm rights through various measures, including constitutional carry and robust statewide firearm preemption with strong enforcement mechanisms. An open carry ban, moreover, has been dismantled through litigation.
As firearm rights have expanded in the state, it is perhaps inevitable gun control activists would find new outlets to exercise their anti-gun obsessions. However, larger questions loom as to whether HOAs and condominium boards are to be considered private property managers with their own lane of authority or whether they possess and exercise enough quasi-governmental control that constitutional protections should constrain them. While Florida has been the site of recent headlines pertaining to this issue, similar conflicts with aggressive association governance have emerged in various other states.
Several states have seen disputes involving legal questions at the intersection of constitutional rights, property interests, contract law, insurance obligations, and state firearm preemption statutes. While HOAs are typically private entities, they have in many cases accumulated significant authority over their residents, such as the ability to make monetary assessments, impose unilateral rulemaking, levy fines, and exercise architectural control over a wide array of spaces, to cite just a few examples. Add in the presumption of intruding upon the exercise of a fundamental constitutional right, and the typical dichotomy between private and public action becomes increasingly blurred.
Legal cases in Illinois have recently challenged firearm bans in public housing where federal courts have held that housing authorities cannot broadly prohibit otherwise lawful firearm possession inside residents’ homes. While different from HOAs and their gathering spaces, the cases have parallel issues of whether quasi-governmental housing entities may impose firearm restrictions through lease agreements or internal policies despite infringing directly on constitutionally protected conduct.
Hawaii is also at the center of Wolford v. Lopez, a Supreme Court case which examines whether states can broadly prohibit firearms on private property open to the public unless express consent is given. Although not directly an HOA case, the pending decision could have broader implications for how courts analyze cases in which public authority and private property are intertwined. Even as courts continue to refine the Bruen legal framework to define the scope of “sensitive places,” new issues are arising on how self-defense rights exist in modern residential environments.
This HOA issue in Florida sits at a timely crossroads that begs the question of where private governance ends and constitutional accountability begins. If constitutional violations can merely be outsourced to private entities exercising government-like authorities, there will need to be more affirmative protection through the legislative process itself.
More Like This From Around The NRA
