Lincoln-area gun owners tell Nebraska Supreme Court they have standing to sue city
The symbol of justice adorns one of the doors to the Nebraska Supreme Court. (Aaron Sanderford/Nebraska Examiner)
LINCOLN — The lawyer for four Lincoln-area gun owners told the Nebraska Supreme Court during oral arguments Thursday that his clients shouldn't need to break a Lincoln city ordinance to gain the legal standing to sue and stop a weapons ban on city property.
Jacob Huebert, a Texas-based lawyer for the Liberty Justice Center who represents the Nebraska Firearms Owners Association, argued that all four of his clients have altered their practice of arming themselves when visiting public parks and public spaces because of the ordinance.
Thursday's case against Lincoln echoes the argument in a separate lawsuit against the City of Omaha over a similar ban. Both lawsuits argue Lincoln and Omaha cannot ban guns in parks, trails and other public spaces because the Legislature outlawed most local gun restrictions with Legislative Bill 77 in 2023.
That law allowed Nebraskans to carry concealed handguns without a permit or state-mandated training. It also curbed some of the power of Nebraska's larger cities to more stringently regulate guns than Nebraska law does in the rest of the state.
The Omaha case is essentially in a holding pattern in Douglas County District Court after a judge paused enforcement of an executive order from Republican Mayor Jean Stothert, who just advanced Tuesday to the May general election for a fourth term.
Lawyers for both cities have argued that past practice and ordinances and the language of LB 77 itself left room for cities to maintain some ability to restrict weapons on property the cities directly control. Attorney General Mike Hilgers disagreed.
On Thursday, Lincoln City Attorney Yohance Christie argued, as he had in his brief, that the people suing lacked standing because they had not broken the law and the city had not prosecuted anyone for the offense. He described the lawsuit as hypothetical.
He argued a district court had correctly tossed out the lawsuit because the plaintiffs lacked standing. He said the people suing had suffered no 'injury.' Justices asked if he was saying they needed to break the law to sue. He said he wasn't suggesting that.
'The only issue in front of you today is standing,' Christie said. 'The standing inquiry is not whether the claim has merit. It's whether the plaintiff is the property party to assert the claim. … There's no reason to even get to the merits.'
Huebert said Nebraska risked holding the plaintiffs to too high a standard to sue. He said they should be allowed to make their case, because the city took away their choice to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights and feel safe.
'In the federal courts and in other state courts, plaintiffs do not have to violate a law that carries criminal penalties,' Huebert said. 'To challenge that law in court, they don't have to subject themselves to arrest, prosecution or other enforcement actions.'
Many of the justices' questions sidestepped the constitutional issue of whether the City of Lincoln overstepped by banning weapons in city parks and some public spaces. Instead, they focused on the narrower legal issue of whether the lower court had mistakenly decided that the gun owners lacked standing to sue.
The Nebraska Supreme Court does not immediately decide such cases. It will issue a written order once the court decides.
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