South Dakota has a comprehensive statutory preemption framework that prohibits county, municipal, and other political-subdivision regulation of...
Reviewed by Will Luker, Founder of CCW Hub. USCCA Training Counselor, USCCA Certified Instructor, NRA Certified Instructor, Law Enforcement.
South Dakota has a comprehensive statutory preemption framework that prohibits county, municipal, and other political-subdivision regulation of firearms beyond what state law authorizes. The principal preemption statute is SDCL Section 7-18A-36 (counties) and SDCL Section 8-5-13 (townships); the parallel municipal preemption is in SDCL Title 9. Session Laws 2025 Chapter 36 substantially expanded this framework.
A board of county commissioners may not adopt any ordinance regulating the carrying, possession, transportation, sale, taxation, manufacture, ownership, transportation, registration, or licensing of firearms or ammunition. The statute reserves the entire field of firearm regulation to the state legislature.
A municipality may not adopt any ordinance regulating the carrying, possession, transportation, sale, taxation, manufacture, ownership, registration, or licensing of firearms or ammunition. The municipal-preemption statute mirrors the county-preemption statute.
A board of township supervisors may not adopt any resolution or ordinance regulating firearms or ammunition.
The preemption sweep is broad. Local governments in South Dakota may not regulate:
What local governments may do:
Session Laws 2025 Chapter 36 expanded preemption further by prohibiting local governments from restricting concealed carry by their own employees, officers, and volunteers in government buildings, facilities, and vehicles. Before 2025, a county or municipal employer could impose a no-firearms workplace policy on its own employees in government buildings. After Session Laws 2025 Chapter 36, that authority is curtailed:
State preemption operates against political-subdivision regulation; it does not displace federal law, statewide statutes, or private-property rules. Even with full statutory preemption:
A local ordinance that violates the preemption statutes is void as a matter of law. Either:
Several attorney-general opinions and at least one circuit-court declaratory action have applied SDCL Section 7-18A-36 and Section 9-19-20 to strike local firearm rules.
A small number of city and county codes adopted before South Dakota strengthened its preemption statute may still appear on the books. These ordinances are not enforceable to the extent they conflict with state law. Local police departments and prosecutors generally do not enforce them. A permit holder or permitless carrier confronted with a pre-2019 local rule may rely on the preemption shield, but should be prepared to challenge the rule by appeal or declaratory action if cited.
The narrow carve-out for local discharge ordinances is well established. A municipality may, by ordinance, prohibit the discharge of a firearm within municipal limits except in lawful self-defense, on a registered shooting range, or in connection with hunting where the municipality has expressly designated hunting areas. Sioux Falls, Rapid City, and most other South Dakota cities have such discharge ordinances.
Discharge ordinances do not regulate the carrying, possession, transport, sale, or ownership of firearms - they regulate the act of firing the firearm. Courts have consistently upheld discharge ordinances as within the police power notwithstanding state preemption of firearm-regulation generally.
Article VI, Section 24 of the South Dakota Constitution recognizes the right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state. This provision does not directly preempt local law (that work is done by the statutes above), but it informs statutory construction and provides an independent constitutional basis for challenge to a local ordinance that the legislature has not directly preempted.
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution applies to South Dakota through the Fourteenth Amendment (McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010)). Local firearm rules surviving state-law preemption analysis are also subject to Bruen-era Second Amendment review (N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022)).
This page covers one part of our South Dakota concealed carry guide.
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