A panel of judges on the Tennessee Appeals Court has ruled that an apartment lease provision banning the tenant from having a firearm is unconstitutional and unenforceable.
The decision in the case involving Columbia resident Kinsley Braden and the Columbia Housing & Redevelopment Corp. was documented by the Second Amendment Foundation.
The three-judge panel, in an opinion written by Judge Frank. G. Clement Jr., said, “(I)n light of the Supreme Court’s most recent decision in Bruen and keeping in mind the presumptively unconstitutional status of Columbia Housing’s policy based on the Supreme Court’s decision in Heller, we conclude that a total ban on the ability of law-abiding residents—like Mr. Braden—to possess a handgun within their public housing unit for the purpose of self-defense is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.”
The noted that the housing organization, in fact, “is a government entity acting as a landlord of property it owns.”
Because it is a government operation, the housing organization must abide by the Constitution, and if it wants a firearm ban, must “establish that its leasehold restrictions on firearms is ‘consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.’”
The case was sent back to a lower court for further proceedings.