Pennsylvania Supreme Court Upholds Preemption Laws

In a lot of states, preemption laws keep local governments from passing gun control. Granted, the gun control passed would just be misdemeanors which wouldn’t accomplish all that much anyway, but some localities seem to think they’re obligated to restrict people’s rights to the highest degree possible. Preemption stops that.

But unsurprisingly, those local governments that want gun control don’t like preemption. They’ve tried to pass gun control in an effort to challenge it.

This has happened a fair bit in Pennsylvania, in recent years.

However, those who think they can overturn it got a bit of a smackdown over it.

Philadelphia’s latest and most far-reaching attempt to enact its own gun laws was brotherly-shoved out of court on Wednesday.

In a unanimous 6-0 decision, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court tossed the city’s lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania’s firearm preemption laws (FPLs), which prohibit local governments from passing gun laws stricter than the state’s laws, as unconstitutional. The Court ruled that Philadelphia’s legal theory for bringing the case did not withstand scrutiny.

“[A]ppellants have failed to state a legally cognizable claim that the FPLs are unconstitutional or otherwise infirm on the asserted grounds that: (1) the FPLs violate substantive due process; (2) the FPLs violate the state-created danger doctrine; and (3) the FPLs interfere with Philadelphia’s delegated duties under the LHAL and DPCL,” Justice Kevin Brobson wrote in Crawford v. Commonwealth.

…

Once before the Supreme Court, Philadelphia officials again made their case that state preemption laws violated their “right to ‘enjoy and defend life and liberty’” because that fundamental right includes “a right to protect themselves from gun violence by means of local regulation.” They cited permit-to-purchase requirements, one-gun-per-month limits, and extreme risk protection orders as measures they would like to pass but cannot under the FPLs. They allege that this state-imposed restriction deprives the city and its residents of their substantive due process rights.

The Pennsylvania justices, who are elected and currently include five Democrats and two Republicans, determined that such an argument is not a legitimate constitutional claim.

Now, note that makeup.

They can’t put this on Republicans or right-wing extremism or whoever else anti-gunners want to blame this one. This was five Democrats who looked at Philadelphia’s arguments and called it BS.

Because it was.

See, the people have a right to enjoy and defend life and liberty, but that right doesn’t mean a local government can just roll in and restrict other rights simply because some people–people who are already breaking the law in the first place–in the name of “defending life and liberty.” In part because restricting liberty isn’t exactly defending it.

But let’s also look at the policies they touted: Permit-to-purchase requirements, gun rationing, and red flag laws. All of those are about something very different than what makes up the lion’s share of what happens in Philadelphia. Those aren’t the result of someone who bought a gun at a local gun store. They’re generally not even the result of a straw purchase, though they happen occasionally.

Most, however, are the result of gun thefts that are then sold to other criminals.

So none of those proposals would stop the crime anyway, especially when they wouldn’t extend past Philadelphia’s city limits.

But that wasn’t the question the state Supreme Court was asked. They were asked if the preemption law is constitutional, and it is. That’s not what Philadelphia wanted to hear and not what Pittsburgh wanted to hear, either, since they tried to ban “assault weapons” after the Tree of Life massacre. That didn’t fly then, either.

Look, these cities need to stop blaming guns and look at other ways to reduce violent crime. The door for gun control is closed to them for good now, and with all the justices voting the same way despite most being Democrats should tell them something.