PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio/AP) — A Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court panel has ruled Philadelphia cannot require gun owners to report lost or stolen weapons, because only the state can make gun laws.
However, one of the judges' concurring opinions may ultimately help the city regulate guns.
A three-judge Commonwealth Court panel ruled unanimously against the city law and issued a permanent injunction, saying the state Uniform Firearms Act preempts it. The Philadelphia Police Department had sought a $2,000 fine against a man charged with violating the lost-and-stolen reporting mandate.
The defendant had pleaded guilty in January 2019 to other firearms offenses, telling a city judge he had been the straw purchaser of six guns. At that hearing, the judge had denied his request for an injunction against the Philadelphia lost-and-stolen firearms ordinance.
The judges cited a 1996 state Supreme Court decision that said assault weapons restrictions in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh were not allowed because the Uniform Firearms Act put authority to regulate firearms in the hands of the state Legislature.
Philadelphia officials say they disagree with the ruling but are not surprised by it.
However, for the first time, part of the opinion acknowledged that the city may need more serious restrictions on guns than the rest of the state.
In a separate opinion, Judge Bonnie Leadbetter wrote that "the overwhelming blight of gun violence occurring in the city of Philadelphia, of which I believe we can take judicial notice, and the policy issues argued by the city in the case before us, call for a recognition that local conditions may well justify more severe restrictions than are necessary statewide."
"When a child cannot leave his home to walk to the corner, we are denying him the most fundamental right," Leadbetter added.
"It is neither just to impose unnecessarily harsh limits in communities where they are not required nor consistent with simple humanity to deny basic safety regulations to citizens who desperately need them."
Judge Leadbetter concurred with the full panel because she said the Court is bound by precedent, but she urged the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to reconsider its previous ruling on local gun laws.
"That was extremely encouraging news," said Council President Darrell Clarke. He added that the hope has been to get the state Supreme Court to reconsider its earlier stance on gun laws.
"This ruling, we think, moves the ball forward in our ability to enact local gun laws that will help us stem the tide of violence," said Clarke, who is active in a separate lawsuit challenging the state pre-emption law.
The mayor's office says the city plans to appeal.
Leadbetter and both of the other judges who heard the appeal, Patricia McCullough and Anne Covey, were elected as Republicans.
Most proposals to regulate guns have gone nowhere in the GOP-majority Legislature, and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf has vetoed universal concealed carry and other Republican efforts to loosen firearms regulations.
Earlier this month, Wolf rejected a bill that would have helped gun owners and gun-rights groups seek civil damages from governmental bodies that pass firearms restrictions.
When a law was enacted in October 2018 to require those convicted of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence or subject to protective orders to give up their guns within 24 hours, it was considered to be the first anti-violence legislation in the state in more than a decade to deal directly with guns.
