Denied entry to target range, lawyer’s lawsuit states.
The Conway lawyer suing Little Rock for refusing to recognize his right to carry his concealed handgun at city hall has turned his sights on the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission after he was denied entry to the agency’s firing-range building in Conway over the weekend.
Chris Corbitt, an enhanced concealed-carry licensee, filed the suit Sunday, the day after range employees refused to allow him to bring his weapon into the building at the Dr. James E. Moore Jr. Camp Robinson Firing Range, 574 Clinton, in Conway.
“Arkansas Game & Fish’s position, apparently, is that it is not subject to the duly enacted laws of this state. Indeed, the logic of the Game and Fish’s position would exempt it from federal law, as well,” the 18-page suit states. “The Arkansas Game & Fish, through its officials, is violating state law under the color of law. It bears noting the irony that an agency providing facilities for firearms training fails to comply with Arkansas law on firearms.”
According to the suit, Attorney General Leslie Rutledge specifically recognized the right of enhanced-carry license holders to have their weapons at Game and Fish properties in a May 2019 opinion requested by Republican Sen. Trent Garner of El Dorado.
Garner had asked Rutledge to consider whether Arkansas Code 5-73-322, enacted as Act 562 of 2017, allowed enhanced-carry permit holders to have their guns on property — buildings, parks or land — paid for by public funds, specifically including Game and Fish-owned properties.
“Enhanced license holders may carry in those locations, and those locations cannot prohibit concealed carrying by enhanced license holders by posting entryway signs,” the opinion states. “However, any such signs remain effective as to traditional concealed carry holders.”
Arkansas has two levels of concealed-carry license, based on training and livefire testing, with enhanced licensees allowed to carry a concealed firearm in more locations, including the State Capitol grounds and building, General Assembly meetings, state offices, churches and public universities.
Corbitt is calling on Pulaski County Circuit Judge Alice Gray to force Game and Fish to remove all “no firearms allowed signs”on its properties, recognize that his constitutional right to own a gun has been violated by the agency, and bar the commission from preventing other enhanced-carry permit holders from bringing their guns into its buildings and properties. He’s further asking the judge to make the agency pay his expenses for bringing suit.
Corbitt’s co-counsel is Little Rock Bowen law school professor Robert Steinbuch, who is also working with Corbitt in the lawsuit he filed last week against Little Rock after Corbitt was denied entry into city hall with his gun.
That case, before Circuit Judge Chip Welch, is scheduled for a hearing at 10 a.m. Wednesday.
The lawyers argue that a new law passed during the recent legislative session is intended to allow enhanced-carry permit holders to take their firearms into municipal buildings. Act 1024 went into effect at the first of the month. They say Little Rock is refusing to recognize the law, but city attorneys have not yet responded to the suit.
Corbitt and Steinbuch are also suing Pulaski County because Corbitt was refused entry to the Pulaski County District Court in January 2020 despite the passage of Arkansas 1087 of 2017, codified as Arkansas Code 5-73122, which states in part that “an officer of the court … is permitted to possess a handgun in the courtroom of any court or a courthouse of this state.”
The county’s motion to dismiss the suit is pending before Circuit Judge Herb Wright.