A man who was blocked from opening a gun store in California asked the Supreme Court this week to review his case, saying Alameda County’s prohibition violates the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

John Teixeira filed an appeal to the high court Monday, according to his attorney Alan Gura.

“When courts no longer require the government to justify its infringement of a fundamental right, the ‘right’ has ceased to exist,” the appeal to the Supreme Court reads. “And if any regulatory history automatically negated a right to engage in the regulated activity, there would be no rights at all.”

The county denied Mr. Teixeira a permit to open a gun story because it would have violated an ordinance requiring firearms dealerships to be 500 feet away from residential areas, schools, day cares, liquor stores and establishments, and other gun shops.

Mr. Teixeira’s store would have been 446 feet away from two residential areas, 14 feet under the 500-ft requirement.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Mr. Teixeira and his co-plaintiffs, holding there was no Second Amendment right to open a store, or to sell firearms.

“The Second Amendment commands that ‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,’” wrote Judge Marsha S. Berzon, a Clinton appointee, in the opinion for the court. “That language confers a right on the ‘people’ who would keep and use arms, not those desiring to sell them.”

Sign up for Daily Newsletters Manage Newsletters

Copyright © 2020 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.