TX: Can Cities enact gun control through zoning?

[ELB]

Senator Donna Campbell, MD, Chair of the Veterans Affairs and Border Security committee of the Legislature, recently requested an opinion from the Attorney General as to whether a city may use zoning regulations to effect gun control. She cites in particular current regulations in Galveston and proposed regulations in San Antonio.

You can read her request here: https://www2.texasattorneygeneral.gov/o ... 0269KP.pdf

For reference, the Request for Opinion is numbered RQ-0269-KP.

[MaduroBU]

Galveston has exactly one range, and the GPD shoots there. While the regulations probably should be struck down, in practice Galveston can't fit another range.

[oohrah]

My son is a member of the Galveston club. The downrange is mostly marsh and in to the backwater IIRC. There's not a lot of places to go inside the city because of the geography anyway. I have found very few restrictions carrying there.

[C-dub]

Gun control? I don't think they can because of state preemption.

Range control? I would not put it past anyone to try. They may even be successful. Through some kind of noise ordinance or pollution or not within so many feet of a school or some other arbitrary thing to limit the location that would then also limit the possibilities of getting the land for any new ranges.

However, IIRC, Texas also passed a law or two not long ago to protect ranges from stuff like this. That doesn't keep the gun grabbers from trying and in some cases even succeeding to shut a range down or bury them in court costs and legal fees to achieve the same result eventually.