Preemption is an important bit of law in the states blessed to have it. It means that all gun control laws must come from the state, not local governments, and creates a system where the laws are unified throughout the state. It means you can’t get arrested for breaking a gun control law one town over unless you were breaking it at home.
It doesn’t stop gun control, it just creates a system where everyone knows what the law is.
Yet in Pennsylvania, they’ve got a history of their larger cities ignoring preemption. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia have both passed gun control laws in violation of the law, and they’ve been smacked down for it, too.
So, what’s next? Well, one lawmaker has introduced a bill to repeal preemption.
Pennsylvania gun owners could find themselves facing a hopeless hodgepodge of surprise restrictions if a state lawmaker has his way.
Democratic Pennsylvania state Rep. Dan Frankel introduced HB 2506 Monday, which would wipe out the state’s firearms preemption law, allowing local governments to enact their own restrictions on how gun owners could carry, transport, purchase or possess firearms. The legislation, introduced alongside HB 2505, also would repeal the state’s version of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, potentially opening gun manufacturers to lawsuits over the actions of criminals.
“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.
National Shooting Sports Foundation spokesman Mark Oliva told the DCNF that the legislation’s provisions were “nonstarters.”
Oliva said that for some very good reasons. It’s a massive problem and, honestly, there’s no reason for it. If you can repeal preemption, then you can pass statewide gun control, and while I’m against that on principle, at least that’s easier to navigate than an inane patchwork of local regulations that no one can keep track of and won’t actually stop criminal activity.
I mean, breaking a local law is a misdemeanor. Someone who breaks such a law isn’t a convicted felon, therefore not precluded from owning guns afterward, and is back on the streets in less than a year, even assuming he or she is locked up in the first place, which isn’t guaranteed.
There’s no reason for this.
Luckily, the state senate is mostly Republican, which means this is unlikely to actually go anywhere, but the fact that they’re trying it is still something to worry everyone.
The war on preemption is nothing new, especially in Pennsylvania. The fact that we’re seeing it from this approach, including the way things have been leaning in the state lately, means this fight is far from over, even if this dies in committee.
It’s a shame, too, because while anti-gunners hate preemption, the truth is that there’s no legitimate reason why they should. Again, it's not like those who violate local gun laws become prohibited persons. It's not like it has any impact on literally anything since guns can be easily purchased elsewhere in the state and transported across town lines. Literally nothing about them stops anything.
So why are they so wound up about it?
Because, despite their claims of how this is about federalism, they simply want as much gun control as possible to make it too much of a pain for anyone to want to own a gun.
Hell, we know it's not about federalism because, if it were, they wouldn't be so dead set on trying to get federal gun control passed as that's the opposite of what they're claiming.
Then again, when have anti-gunners worried about consistency?
