Pennsylvanias long-standing protections for gun owners and the firearms industry are under direct assault from a new Democratic proposal that would shatter statewide uniformity and invite a wave of anti-gun litigation.
According to WND, Democratic state Rep. Dan Frankel has introduced legislation that would scrap Pennsylvanias firearms preemption law, handing cities and towns the power to impose their own rules on how residents may carry, transport, purchase or possess guns. Introduced alongside a companion measure, the package would also repeal the states version of the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, exposing gun manufacturers and dealers to lawsuits over crimes committed by third parties.
Both of these bills, HB 2505 and HB 2506, would create a patchwork quilt of gun control laws across Pennsylvania ensnaring law-abiding gun owners, and it would open up the floodgates for municipalities to sue the firearms industry out of existence, Gun Owners of America Pennsylvania lobbyist Val Finnell told the Daily Caller News Foundation. For Second Amendment advocates, the move is a textbook example of using local government and the courts to achieve gun control goals that cannot pass at the statewide level.
National Shooting Sports Foundation spokesman Mark Oliva told the DCNF that the legislations provisions were nonstarters. This legislation would only create a series of legal land mines for gun owners in the Commonwealth, Oliva said.
Additionally, the provision to strike the law that prohibits frivolous lawsuits against the firearm industry would open the courts for lawfare. Pennsylvanias legislators should focus on holding the criminals accountable for their crimes and protecting its citizens and their fundamental rights.
In a co-sponsorship memo circulated to colleagues, Frankel claimed that state preemption has tied the hands of big-city officials. He argued that Pittsburgh and Philadelphia have been blocked from taking steps he says are necessary to protect public safety, and his office pointed the DCNF back to that memo when asked for further comment.
Our communities in Pennsylvania are barred from doing anything at all to prevent gun violence, the memo states. They cannot ban weapons of war, they cannot require firearm owners let law enforcement know when their guns go missing, and they cannot require adults in homes with children to store their firearms safely. All because of a successful firearm industry effort 50 years ago to block communities from regulating firearms.
Pennsylvanias municipalities have differing needs when it comes to firearm safety, and locally accountable leaders should be able to address those needs through local regulations, Frankel continued. My bill would simply allow our communities to make their own rules regarding deadly firearms, just as they do for fire prevention or traffic regulation.
Notably absent from Frankels memo is any acknowledgment that his proposal would repeal Act 59, Pennsylvanias own version of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act enacted in 1999. That omission masks the broader objective of the legislation: empowering trial lawyers and anti-gun activists to use the courts to punish lawful manufacturers for the criminal misuse of their products.
Giffords, a prominent gun control organization, has noted that 45 states maintain some form of firearms preemption, though the strength of those laws varies. While progressive jurisdictions such as Colorado and California have carved out room for local bans and restrictions, most states have deliberately kept regulatory authority at the state level to avoid chaos and protect constitutional rights.
The Department of Justice recently sued the city of Denver over its ban on modern semiautomatic rifles such as the AR-15, underscoring the legal vulnerability of local gun bans even in left-leaning states. Colorados legislature has not enacted a comparable statewide prohibition, leaving Denvers ordinance as an outlier driven by local politics rather than consistent statewide policy.
It creates confusion when laws vary widely within a state, potentially placing otherwise law-abiding citizens at risk of violating an ordinance of which they were not previously aware, as they travel within their states, the National Rifle Associations Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) says on its website. That concern is at the heart of conservative resistance to Frankels plan, which would turn ordinary travel with a lawfully owned firearm into a legal minefield.
This is just sort of a feeble attempt to strike back, NRA-ILA Pennsylvania lobbyist Darin Goens told the DCNF, pointing to recent legislative efforts to reinforce preemption. He noted that the Pennsylvania state Senate passed SB 822, a bill he said puts teeth into the existing statute by giving citizens and gun-rights groups stronger tools to challenge rogue local ordinances.
Senate Bill 822 finally puts teeth into the law because to us this is settled law. The state has a preemption statute, Goens explained. The courts have held it up, you know, end of story. However, these local municipalities have openly flouted the law.
SB 822, sponsored by Republican state Sen. Wayne Langerholc, cleared the Senate on May 6 by a 30-20 vote, reflecting solid GOP support and some bipartisan recognition that uniformity matters. As Frankel and his allies push to dismantle preemption and expose the firearms industry to lawfare, the clash in Harrisburg now centers on whether Pennsylvania will continue to protect law-abiding gun owners and manufacturersor follow the progressive model of fragmented local control and courtroom-driven gun policy.
Login