Slate
It all started about five years ago, when a group of Pennsylvania
cities, frustrated with the difficulty of getting gun-law reforms passed
in the Republican-controlled state legislature, started passing laws
and ordinances on their own. Their highest priority was requiring gun
owners to report lost or stolen guns—a law that was intended to make it
harder for gun traffickers to claim, after a crime gun was traced back
to them, that the gun had been lost or stolen before the crime was
committed. Most of the states bordering Pennsylvania had such a law, but
it was going nowhere in Harrisburg. Eventually, more than 100 towns and
cities passed the requirement. “The state was not taking any action on
it and by putting together support at the grassroots level and showing
that mayors and council could take action, we hoped it would compel
action at the state level,” says Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, who was
on the city council at the time. “It’s the grassroots level that brings
change to state capitals and then Washington, D.C.”
Such laws are anathema to the gun lobby, which argues they violate
the Fifth Amendment’s bar against self-incrimination, since reporting a
lost or stolen gun might implicate someone for other violations.
Gun-rights advocates have also been peeved over another set of
ordinances passed by Pennsylvania towns, banning guns from parks or
other public areas, as well as by laws passed by Philadelphia that,
among other things, limit assault weapons and gun ownership for
domestic-violence abusers. Gun-rights groups argue that most of the
local laws are in violation of a 1974 state law that bars municipalities
against passing restrictions that are pre-empted by state gun laws. But
they have had trouble getting the laws overturned, because that
requires finding someone who can show injury from the laws to bring a
lawsuit challenging them.
So the gun lobby got the state legislature to change the rules of the
game. Late last year, Pennsylvania lawmakers passed a bill, loosely
modeled on a Florida law, to make it possible for any state resident or any gun-rights group to which they belong to challenge local gun laws in court.
The law, Act 192, is an explicit carve-out for gun-rights groups from
customary legal procedures—challenges of school-prayer restrictions, for
instance, are typically brought by actual students who can show that
their rights have been infringed by the restrictions. Not only that, but
the law requires that towns and cities pay the legal fees of any
plaintiffs who successfully challenge their gun laws in court.
In other words, the NRA, with its headquarters in northern Virginia
and annual revenues well above $200 million, can sue towns and cities,
and expect them to pay its costs if it wins.
