Pittsburgh Finally Getting the Message on Preemption

In the wake of the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, local lawmakers sought to enact gun control. It wasn’t going to actually do much to stop the next maniac looking to become famous or simply slaughter people because they’re perpetually mad at the world, but it would let local officials pretend they were doing something.

The problem is that Pennsylvania has preemption. All gun control laws have to be created by the state legislature. Local governments don’t have that authority, and the folks in Pittsburgh were kind of salty about it.

Yet maybe they’re starting to get the message now.

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.

One would hope that after this latest ruling–one that was 6-0, by the way, which means even Democratic justices voted in favor of preemption–Pittsburgh officials would realize that if they want gun control, they have to first push it at the state level, which they still can’t successfully do, and then they have to craft it so it can survive federal legal challenges.

Frankly, none of what they wanted there would have flown, in my opinion, and would have been struck down by the Supreme Court, even if preemption wasn’t enough to kill them.

But it was and is.

Look, what happened in Pittsburgh was awful. The fact that so many cities are still having a violent crime problem is awful. Yet the truth is that gun control won’t solve it, and local gun control most definitely won’t solve it. All municipalities can do is establish laws that are misdemeanors. Those are punishable by less than a year in jail and a fine. They don’t stop people from lawfully buying guns afterward, either, which means they can keep breaking those laws as often as they want.

So yeah, let’s hope Pittsburgh got the message for a change. Let’s hope everywhere else did, too.