Month: June 2008

KYW actually read my question on the air this morning at about 8:36AM.  I was in my car on my way to work.  His response basically was that I was incorrect.  That his laws were not, in fact, violating the constitution, and that he respects the second amendment.  His laws, you see, are only meant to go after criminals.  They aren’t meant to target law abiding gun owners.  And what reason do law abiding gun owners have to own an assault weapon anyway?   Well, Mr. Mayor, under your law, all the following are assault weapons:

Now, Mr. Mayor, do you care to try, once again, to tell me I’m wrong?  The city ordinances do affect sport shooters Mr. Mayor.  Either you’re a fool, because you believe what Joe Grace of CeaseFire PA, and your advisors are telling you, without asking real experts, or you are dishonest for deliberately misleading the citizens of Philadelphia and of this Commonwealth.  Either way, it doesn’t look good.

I was happy that the reporter asked a follow up question, from a questioner asking how he expected gun control to be effective in Philadelphia when it hasn’t been effective in Washington DC at reducing crime.  The Mayor doged that question by suggesting that things in DC were “complicated” and that it wasn’t a simple problem.  He then went to provide the example of New York City, which has what he called “more reasonable” gun laws (New York law amounts to near total prohibition, BTW, except for the rich and famous) and has managed to lower its crime rate.   The reporter fired back at him, again using part of this reader’s question which stated that New York City’s gun laws were decades old, and crime only recently began to drop there.   Mayor Nutter dodged again, suggesting the questioner come live in Philadelphia for a bit, and then see if he feels the same way about gun control.   Well, I can be pretty sure if I had to live there, I would cling to my guns like the most bitter and religious person Barack Obama could possibly imagine!

UPDATE: I’ve obtained a copy of the segment for you.

UPDATE: I originally had an .17HMR rifle and a shotgun in there, but upon further review of the law, neither of those firearms qualified.  I have replaced them with better examples.

Apparently Judge Greenspan ruled that two of the laws were illegal:

A Philadelphia judge yesterday sided with the National Rifle Association and struck down city ordinances banning assault weapons and limiting handgun purchases to one a month.

In a blow to the city’s attempt to write its own gun laws, Common Pleas Court Judge Jane Cutler Greenspan ruled that Philadelphia should be permanently prevented from enforcing the laws that City Council passed unanimously in April.

But Greenspan gave city officials a consolation prize by declining to strike down three other laws on procedural grounds, indicating that the NRA and other plaintiffs did not have legal standing to challenge those laws.

The laws that remain standing, for now:

The three laws Greenspan allowed to stand permit judges to remove guns from people declared to be a risk to themselves or others, prevent people subject to protection-from-abuse orders from owning guns, and require gun owners to report the loss or theft of a gun to police within 24 hours.

Oliver said the city would immediately begin to enforce the law requiring gun owners to report lost guns. He said the other two laws would require enforcement regulations.

Shields said it was only a matter of time, as the city attempted to enforce the laws, until the NRA would locate aggrieved parties who could act as plaintiffs.

This fight will continue.  Note that the judge didn’t allow the three laws to stand on merit, she allowed them to stand because the plantiffs in the case didn’t have standing to challenge them.  Standing is often used by courts when they want to dodge issues.  I’m not familiar with Pennsylvania’s standing doctrines, but I would suggest that the ruling makes sense by legal reasoning, even if we don’t particularly like the outcome.