Pennsylvania Court Throws Out Gun Control Law

A week doesn’t go by without a self-defense shooting in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and crime is still on the rise as a result of the defund the police movement, what are unarmed residents of the city left to do? Get armed of course! If a recent court decision is anything to go off of then it looks like Pennsylvania may be going in the right direction when it comes to guns. 

Back in 2008, the city of Philadelphia passed an ordinance that mandated that gun owners need to report their lost or stolen firearms as being missing with the local police within 48 hours or they would face charges. Since the passing of that ordinance, it has only been enforced once and in that case, it was thrown out by a three-judge panel. 

The case centered around one man who confessed to straw purchasing several firearms, the prosecution also slapped him with an additional charge for violating the city ordinance. The case started in 2019, meaning that it took over 10 years for this ordinance to ever be used. This past Monday, a three-judge panel threw out the charges for violating the city ordinance because the cities ordinance violated the state’s preemption law. 

Even though the court threw out the law, the prosecution is likely going to appeal it. This is a win today but it may not be a win tomorrow. 

This kind of ordinance has been popular with the gun control crowd in recent years and they are frequently marketed as a “safety regulation” for firearms. This style of regulation is troublesome because if it is heavily enforced then victims end up on the wrong side of the courtroom and in the event you enforce it on a criminal they can always claim that they did not know it was stolen until the police told them.

This legislation makes the gun control crowd feel like they have done something when in reality they have done nothing.