Legal/Law/Criminal Justice and Reform

Blue State City Waves White Flag, Repeals Gun-Free Zone Ordinance

Screenshot/Rumble/CBS Baltimore

The Winchester, Virginia, city council repealed an ordinance prohibiting firearms in parking garages, resulting in the Tuesday dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a pro-Second Amendment group.

Gun Owners Foundation (GOF) and the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) sued the city in 2024 over a November 2022 ordinance that prohibited carrying firearms on city property. The pro-Second Amendment groups obtained an injunction on June 11, 2024, barring Winchester from enforcing the ordinance.

“Sure, so we almost immediately got an injunction, so that was in place for quite a while, for over a year,” Gun Owners of America Senior Vice President Erich Pratt told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “So for over a year they’ve not been able to enforce that ban and the trial, moved forward with discovery, etc., and in fact, we were getting close to where it was time to depose the Winchester police chief, but before we could get to that, I think, Winchester knew ultimately they saw the handwriting on the wall, and so they repealed their ordinance.”

🚨VICTORY🚨

GOF and @GunOwners, alongside @VCDL_ORG, have won our case against the City of Winchester, VA.

When they banned firearms in City parking garages, we sued. Realizing they would be met with certain defeat, the City Council capitulated, voting to repeal the ordinance. pic.twitter.com/4nKvsT6LNp

— Gun Owners Foundation (@GunFoundation) May 27, 2026

The city council repealed the ordinance on May 12, according to the order dismissing the case as moot.

“I think the judge did the right thing and that is, to throw it out for because now it’s moot, you know, they’ve repealed their ordinance and, so now there’s no more ban on in the city parking garages,” Pratt told the DCNF.

Pratt told the DCNF that a similar case involving parks is going on against the city of Roanoke, Virginia, which is currently in the discovery phase.

About 600 violent crimes a week take place in parking garages, according to ECAM, a manufacturer of surveillance cameras for use in parking garages and other locations.

“The inherent design of parking lots makes them susceptible to providing many spaces for lawbreakers to hide,” ECAM said on their website. “If they spot someone coming, they can easily duck under a vehicle or somewhere in the lot with poor lighting. Additionally, they tend to be open to the public, which makes it harder to identify who could be a potential bad actor.”