Pa. GOP Legislators Hope Appeal Will Overturn Court Action on State Gun Law
By Tony Romeo
HARRISBURG, Pa. (CBS) -- A spokeswoman says Pennsylviania state senate Republicans expect to appeal a Commonwealth Court ruling today that struck down a law that made it easier to challenge municipal gun controls in Pennsylvania.
The law, which made it easier for gun rights activists and groups to sue municipalities over local gun ordinances, was struck down not over the issue of whether Pennsylvania municipalities have the right to pass their own gun control laws, but rather over the way the state legislature passed the bill.
"They used bad procedure to get a bad, unpopular policy passed, and they got caught," said Shira Goodman, the executive director of CeaseFirePA. "And this is what the lesson is."
Democratic state senator Daylin Leach, representing Montgomery and Delaware counties, says the court's decision suits him fine.
"This bill's not going to come back," he tells KYW Newsradio. "The (current) governor will never sign a bill like this. For the next at-least-four years, this bill is dead. And I think it's dead permanently, because I think people -- senators who voted for this –- understood their own municipalities were being sued."
Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter, in a statement, called the ruling a "great victory." The Nutter administration says it will now ask that an NRA lawsuit filed against seven Philadelphia gun laws, including one requiring the reporting of lost and stolen firearms, be dismissed in light of the ruling.