The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled 6-0 against Philadelphia’s attempt to secure exemptions in the state’s preemption law sufficient to allow the city to enact its own gun controls.
Preemption laws exist in numerous states around the country, barring municipalities from passing gun controls that exceed gun controls enacted at the state level.
The administration of Philadelphia’s previous Mayor, Jim Kinney (D), filed suit against Pennsylvania in 2020, seeking to secure the ability for the city to pass gun controls that go beyond those at the state level.
On October 7, 2020, the Philadelphia Inquirer noted that Kinney announced the lawsuit and “[spoke] at a packed news conference in Germantown to promote the legal action, [claiming] preemption ‘handcuffs’ local governments from taking measures that could protect residents.”
The attorneys working for the Kinney administration suggested the state’s preemption law “actively [prevents] an effective gun safety approach that would save the lives, property, and bodily integrity of Pennsylvania residents, particularly in low-income neighborhoods in the largest cities.”
On November 20, 2024, the PA Supreme Court ruled in against Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Inquirer indicated the court found “the city’s arguments had fallen ‘woefully short’ of the standard needed for a legal victory.”
From the majority opinion:
The accounts of gun violence set forth in the Petition, like all other instances of gun violence, are undeniably tragic. There is also no doubt that a serious problem exists in this Commonwealth relative to gun violence and its impacts on our citizenry.
While certain municipalities and residents thereof may believe, even justifiably, that our state government is not doing enough to remedy this problem and that particular local regulations are needed to do so but are preempted by the [firearm preemption laws], we emphasize that “the adequacy of the legislation to cope with the problem and the wisdom or the lack thereof on the part of the legislature in framing [the] legislation is not for us to determine. Such questions are solely for the legislature to determine and upon their province, we must not encroach.”
Had they won, Philadelphia city officials wanted to pass laws securing gun controls such “as requiring a permit to purchase guns in the city or limiting the number of guns a person could buy in the city limits within a certain time frame.”
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