by Gun Week staff
Faced with a staggering crime problem and skyrocketing murder rate, Philadelphia, PA, Mayor Michael Nutter signed into law in early April five anti-gun measures apparently in defiance of state law and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and gun rights organizations moved swiftly in response.
Nutter defended the action, arguing that he and members of the City Council are essentially walking in the footsteps of Americans who launched the Revolutionary War. Veteran Pennsylvania gun rights activists Kim Stolfer with the Firearms Owners Against Crime and Allegheny County Sportsmen’s League, called that notion “nonsense.”
A day after the mayor signed all five measures, both the National Rifle Association (NRA) and Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) announced they would be taking legal action against the city to force it to comply with state law. Pennsylvania has had state preemption on gun regulation since 1974, and that authority has been upheld by the state’s highest court in a 1996 ruling against Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, which had wanted their own gun laws.
On Apr. 17, Common Pleas Judge Jane Cutler Greenspan ordered the city to temporarily halt enforcement of the five gun-control laws passed by City Council a week earlier and signed by Nutter.
The city was ordered to stop writing police rules for enforcing the laws and training officers about them, at least until Apr. 28 or possible May 19, when Greenspan had scheduled a hearing on the NRA’s request for a permanent injunction.
District Attorney Lynne Abraham had previously said that the local laws conflict with state laws and she will not enforce them.
The NRA requested a temporary restraining order on behalf of its members in the city, two firearm groups, two gun shops and four firearm owners.
In a harshly-worded statement, SAF Foundation founder Alan Gottlieb nicknamed the city “Killadelphia” and reminded the mayor that he couldn’t willfully violate state law and then expect anyone else to obey it.
“How can Mayor Nutter and the council expect anyone else, especially criminals, to obey the law if they don’t live up to the same standard,” Gottlieb wondered. “Just because the mayor doesn’t like the fact that the state legislature retains sole authority over gun laws does not give him or the city council any right to essentially set up their own fiefdom. What kind of example does that set? What does it accomplish?”
The new measures include a limit on handgun purchases to one per month, a ban on so-called assault weapons, a requirement that citizens report lost or stolen guns to police within 24 hours, and a provision allowing police to confiscate firearms from people who allegedly pose “a risk of imminent personal injury.”
A fifth ordinance would prohibit people under protection orders from possessing firearms, but that is already against federal law.