The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday shot down an attempt by Philadelphia officials to overturn state laws barring the city from enacting its own gun laws. Officials say that could affect Pittsburgh’s own attempts to regulate gun violence, and have sweeping ramifications for gun laws across the state.
The City of Philadelphia, gun violence prevention advocacy group CeaseFirePA, and people impacted by gun violence argued that the city’s gun violence epidemic stemmed from decades-old precedents giving the legislature sole authority to regulate gun ownership. They asked the court to overturn those rules and allow local governments to enact their own legislation on the matter.
In a unanimous opinion released Wednesday, Justice Kevin Brobson acknowledged that “gun violence is taking lives and destroying families in all parts of this Commonwealth,” but ruled the city’s argument was “wholly insufficient” to prove that the ban on local gun laws was the cause of gun violence.
Cities including Pittsburgh have attempted to create their own laws meant to reduce gun violence. In 2019, in response to an armed gunman killing 11 worshippers at a Squirrel Hill synagogue, Pittsburgh enacted a suite of gun control bills. The bills banned the use of assault rifles, high-capacity magazines, and other accessories like bump stocks within city limits. Another established procedures for removing guns from those deemed by a judge to be an “extreme risk” to themselves or others.
The laws met with legal challenges from gun rights advocates and were never enforced. The Commonwealth Court later struck down the rules.
At the time, Pittsburgh officials vowed to appeal the decision. And city councilor Erika Strassburger, who helped craft the city’s ordinances, said officials saw the Philadelphia case as an opportunity to establish local governments’ ability to pass laws when the state declined to act.
Strassburger called Wednesday’s decision “incredibly disappointing.”
“It feels like we've been trying for years now to pass the most common-sense legislation,” she said.
The decision, she said, has effectively killed any future attempts to regulate guns on the city level.
“I don't fault our justices, but I do fault our state legislature as a whole — if they’re not going to pass gun sense legislation — for not allowing cities to protect our own residents and to pass our own legislation that we know we need,” Strassburger said.
"We are deeply disappointed in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania's decision to leave local governments handcuffed, preventing them from enacting proven policies that will save the lives of their residents,” CeaseFirePA said in a statement.
“It is clear the Pennsylvania General Assembly's refusal to act and tying the hands of local officials has exacerbated this public health crisis. It's past time for the General Assembly to change course, before more lives are lost.”
Gun-rights advocates applauded the court’s decision.
Affirming the legislature’s right to regulate firearms will ensure “we don't have this patchwork of laws across the Commonwealth that will ensnare law-abiding citizens,” said Joshua Prince, chief counsel for the Firearms Industry Consulting Group.
Prince represented groups that sued to overturn Pittsburgh’s measures.
He argued this week’s decision could lay the groundwork for a broader ruling that would bar municipalities from regulating anything related to guns, like a local ordinance barring discharge of a weapon.
Local officials say they will continue to push for changes to gun laws — though the methods they use are likely to shift.
“We have to think collectively on the best ways to help protect our residents,” said Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor, also a former City Council member who worked on the legislation.
“There's a certain level of winning the hearts and minds of not only the public, but legislators,” said Strassburger.
They’ll look to existing anti-violence strategies, like out-of-school programs and eliminating blight, to curb gun deaths. She also plans to lobby the state legislature, though it might be an uphill battle.
“I'm not optimistic in the short term,” Strassburger acknowledged. “But it's an issue that I know will continue to affect so many lives that in the long term, we can continue to chip away and make progress, especially when we know that the majority of the public is on our side.”
