The Sedona City Council took aim at updating its firearms in public places ordinance during its Dec. 10 meeting, but it may have missed the mark.
The proposed update to Sedona City Code 12.30.090 was triggered by an Oct. 9 letter to the city from Arizona Rep. Quang Nguyen [R-District 1], in which Nguyen pointed out that the city’s prohibition on carrying firearms in broadly-defined “open spaces” violated Arizona Revised Statutes §13-3108(A)’s preemption of local regulation of firearms.
On Nov. 18, Nguyen and fellow District 1 Rep. Selina Bliss [R] followed up Nguyen’s first letter with a request that Attorney General Kris Mayes investigate the city pursuant to ARS §41-194.01 to determine whether the code section was in compliance with state law, known as an SB1487 investigation after the 2016 law that established the state statute.
City Attorney Kurt Christianson had stated following Nguyen’s letter to the attorney general that the code would be updated on Dec. 10.
The code update appeared on the consent agenda for the council’s Dec. 10 meeting, but was pulled for public discussion by Mark Infanzon, chief lobbyist for the Arizona Citizens’ Defense League, the organization that first brought the Sedona statute to Nguyen’s attention.
“While I appreciate the amendment offered to the city code referring to this 12.30.090, the amendment is still in violation of our state constitution in regards to the Heller decision, in regards to the McDonald decision and in regards to the Bruen decision, which would keep Sedona still in violation of [ARS] 13-3108,” Infanzon said, referencing the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings in District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008; McDonald v. City of Chicago in 2010 and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen in 2022, respectively.
“I disagree with that assessment,” Christianson said. “It was also reviewed by the Attorney General’s Office and legislative counsel from the legislature, and they both approved the changes. And the representatives who initially made the complaint about this item, they also approved the amendments as proposed.”
“The issue that it has in the amendment, it still considers crossbows, longbows, things like that,” Infanzon said. “Under the Heller decision, ‘arms,’ the definition of ‘arms,’ considers any defensive weapon, and those can be used as defensive weapons under our state constitution, under Article 2, Section 26. Based upon that, it’s still in violation.”
“I’m in discussion with the legislators who filed the 1487, and I doubt they would have approved of this,” Infanzon added.
“They’ve already agreed to withdraw their complaint,” Christianson said. “Those have always been prohibited, that’s not new language, it’s always been in there, and it was compliant with the constitution before.”
“Heller wasn’t decided until 2008,” Infanzon argued. “The Supreme Court decision in 2008 defined the word ‘arms,’ which further defined it in our state constitution. That’s why it’s in violation.”
The council then passed Christianson’s proposed amendments unanimously without discussion.
“They can cease and desist with this nonsense,” AzCDL’s Media Coordinator Charles Heller said on Dec. 12 regarding the next steps the group plans to take. “They’re acting illegally. If you or I acted with the same level of fealty to law that Sedona is, you would be arrested. We’re not going to arrest the whole city. However … we’re ready to file suit. The Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation has a lawsuit ready to go.”
As of Dec. 13, the website for the Attorney General’s Office indicated that the complaint had been “withdrawn by the requesting legislators.”
