Discussion - No firearms allowed as part of your lease.

[Militarypol21]

I'm asking your input on the LEGAL aspects of the following:

I am a police officer in a city north of Indianapolis and the other day a female walked into the department asking if it was legal if she had a compound bow in her trailer. The officer working stated, of course, why not?

The female stated, according to her lease no firearms were allowed in any trailer in this trailer court. (Note: This female obviously did not know the definition of a firearm and that is a different story all of its own.) Also note, the property itself is considered private property but once you declare residency in my opinion, according to our second amendment it is our right to own a firearm. Because the property as a whole is private property the property owner can trespass anyone carrying a firearm on the property if they are just walking through.

So answer this...

Normally the property owner goes over your lease line by line. When you come to the line that states "No Firearms" you ignore it. The next day the property owner sees you loading/unloading guns from your vehicle and starts the eviction process for breach of lease. Now technically you did breach the lease by having a firearm when your lease specifically states "No Firearms". But our second amendment states it is our right to own a firearm. Your input?

 

[lovemachine]

Isn't it the same as walking into a restaurant/store with a "no guns" sign in the window?

They have the right to ask you to leave.

The landlord can't take your rights to own a gun away, but they have the right to make you leave.

 

[SaintsNSinners]

I believe that would fall under the no preemptions law



But IANAL

 

[eldirector]

A) The 2A is about the government, not about private business. It does not apply here at all.

B) Your lease is simply a contract. Either you agreed to the terms (both parties) or not. If you violate the terms, then there is generally a termination clause of some sort (read: eviction).

Same as if your lease said no cats/dogs, and you brought one home anyway.

 

[MarkM]

My place of residence doesn't allow firearms either. But I was told as long as they are locked up. Which mine are unless my carry gun is on me. That its not an issue.

 

[IncendiaryGunner]

Unless it is property that is supported or subsidized by government entities, I cannot think of anything that would allow that clause in the lease to be ruled unenforceable.

Then again, IANAL - and just because I have not seen it does not mean squat.

 

[Llamaguy]

I would imagine that what goes on inside the actual residence is none of the landlord's business as long as it isn't illegal.

 

[Westside]

you say you are a leo. Talk to your prosecutor they should be able to answer this question.

 

[downzero]

Isn't it the same as walking into a restaurant/store with a "no guns" sign in the window?

They have the right to ask you to leave.

The landlord can't take your rights to own a gun away, but they have the right to make you leave.

Wrong. Not the same because a lease involves an assignment of some part of your property rights.

I don't know what the limits are on clauses in leases, but there are certain clauses in leases that would be void. One would have to research the relevant Indiana law, assuming we're talking about Indiana.

And no, the landlord doesn't have a right to make you leave without some sort of legal process.

A leasehold is a property interest.

 

[Bunnykid68]

If you sign the lease you have agreed to everything in that contract, no matter how stupid it is.

 

[downzero]

Guy commented in an old thread; appears that this is valid.

https://www.indianagunowners.com/fo...fense/172461-can_apartments_ban_firearms.html

Minimal research suggests that there are states in which this would be void.

Maybe we need such a law.

 

[Militarypol21]

you say you are a leo. Talk to your prosecutor they should be able to answer this question.

I am not the one that actually talked to this woman and the trailer park in question is not within our city limits (it is actually county). I was made aware of this at shift change and am just interested in hearing your input. I have talked about this with our chief of police and he didn't having a real answer.

Some of you say what happens inside your trailer is your own business as long as it is not illegal. The second amendment reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Lets say the property owner gets wind that you are keeping firearms inside your trailer and starts the eviction process. In my opinion, this is infringement.

 

[SaintsNSinners]

The way it works is that by the leaseholder allowing you to sign a lease they have granted you a right to that property. You have a contractual interest in said property. You have a reasonable expectation of privacy and safety in said property. A landlord cannot enter your property without notice except in emergency situations.

For all legal purposes the property leased is yours. That is why it takes a court to evict you and reclaim their property back.


But IANAL

 

[HoughMade]

Here is how you exercise your right to bear arms. Don't sign the lease and find somewhere else to live.

If you sign a contract (which is all a lease is) that you will not have a firearm and you have a firearm, you have breached the lease. Honestly, this is not even a law-school final exam question.

The Second Amendment applies to government, not private action. Frankly, until the McDonald case, the Second Amendment had only been applied to federal government actions, not state or local. It most certainly does not apply to private actions.

Can your boss fire you for exercising your freedom of speech? Absolutely (with very limited exceptions). "But what about MY freedom of speech?"

Can a church exclude certain people according to their belief system? Of course they can. "But what about MY freedom of religion?"

Your boss has a freedom NOT to be associated with certain speech and the church has a right NOT to to accept people who do not agree with it's belief system.

You have a right to keep and bear arms and the gvt. cannot infringe upon it. A private citizen can ask you to waive that right by contract (almost ANY right can be waived) and if you sign a lease excluding firearms, you just waived that right and gave your word that you would not have firearms on the premises.

Several responders above are mixing concepts of law that limit government action into a private situation. The same standards simply do not apply.

 

[snowrs]

I would hope that people here would support the landlord. He owns the building he has all the right in the world to tell you what you can and can not do on his property.

 

[Excalibur]

This is why it is also best to own a home. That or read the fine print on your lease contract.

 

[Raskolnikov]

Unfortunately, this seems like a valid lease. Just think of a college dorm. When I was attending college and living in the dorms, I was forbidden from having any weapons in your unit. I was on the judicial board of the dorm that year, and we kicked people out of the dorms (which is a legal residence) for violations of the landlord-tenant agreement--although we never had a weapons case. We frequently had people get into trouble for having alcoholic beverages in their unit (even if they were over 21), because they agreed not to have it.

Luckily, when I moved into an off campus apartment, I was living in a gun friendly complex. The leasing agent was a Jewish girl from the East Coast. When I asked her if I was allowed to have firearms in my apartment, she looked at me like I was crazy, and said, "Uh, yeah...you have that right under the Second Amendment!" Needless to say, we got along well.

 

[jon5212]

It's probably there so the landlord won't have any liability if something were to happen in "his" property by a tenant involving a firearm.

 

[mrjarrell]

I am not the one that actually talked to this woman and the trailer park in question is not within our city limits (it is actually county). I was made aware of this at shift change and am just interested in hearing your input. I have talked about this with our chief of police and he didn't having a real answer.

Some of you say what happens inside your trailer is your own business as long as it is not illegal. The second amendment reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Lets say the property owner gets wind that you are keeping firearms inside your trailer and starts the eviction process. In my opinion, this is infringement.

Forget the 2nd Amendment for a moment. It only applies to government entities. In Indiana I would cite Section 32 of the state Constitution.

Section 32. The people shall have a right to bear arms, for the defense of themselves and the State.

It just states that you flat out have the right to bear arms. And it places no limits on the Right. That said, tho, if you sign a contract and you break said contract then any applicable penalties may be applied. Wouldn't stop a person from suing the landlord, tho, for violating your rights. Shoot, you might even win.

 

[CathyInBlue]

Houghmade: Let's not get too far afield here. Rights to speak freely and believe freely are not implicated in the RKBA. We are talking about housing here. Public accommodations. Let's further keep on track in that we're talking about a trailer park, where the real estate owner provides a gravel driveway, an electric, water, and sewer hook up point, and maybe a gas hook up and a concrete pad to park on. The actual residence is provided by the leasor himself. There is zero grounds upon which the trailer park owner can enter a privately owned house trailer. The most they could do is to go around to the utilities access point, shut them all off, and padlock them.

Under the 14th Amendment, it's illegal for proprietors of public accommodations to deny contracting for those accommodations with people of certain demographic backgrounds. You cannot be denied because of your genetic background, whether your gene pool's tributaries run through Africa, Asia, etc. You cannot be denied because of your religious affiliation, whether you pray to the correct god. Whether your reproductive organs are on the inside or outside of your body. Other than that, there's not a lot to the list of protected classes that the federal government has declared that the 14th Amendment protects.

In many places, sexual orientation has been added. I would love to see socio-political affiliation added, so that places can't say Liberals welcome, but Conservatives get lost, or vice versa, but that hasn't happened yet. And likewise, as has been discussed here before, firearms ownership is not among the list of rights, privileges, and immunities which proprietors of public accommodations are forbidden to use as discriminating criteria for deciding with whom to contract.

If a leasor, whether of an apartment or a trailer park slot, finds a clause in their lease, "No praying to Jehovah, Yahweh, Jesus, Moses, Mohammad, or Allah." it would be trivial to get such a clause overturned as unlawful, even though the leasor signed on the bottom line. If the clause discovered read, "No promoting the ideals of Communism, Socialism, Fascism, Liberalism, or any other form of Collectivist ideology." that would be a little trickier, as the freedom of speech is not necessarily seen as something deserving of protection in public accommodations. When the clause reads, "No firearms, ammunition, or firearm accessories." there's just no basis under the federal laws as currently formulated and understood to have that clause declared null and void.

That does not mean that there is no protections for gun owners in public accommodations. Just that the traditional civil rights protections of the feds are not the places to go looking for them. We've had a quickly expanding umbrella of protections for gun owners here in Indiana, at the state level. It would be trivial to add one for residential leasors.

I remember when I was going to orientation for living on IUB's campus, the materials warned to pass any lease agreement past a lawyer before signing it, because for many things, even if the lease contained clauses which it was illegal for the landlord to place there, once you signed that lease, those clauses are nonetheless binding on you.