Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Does a gun owners’ group whose members have not been cited for violating the measure have legal standing to challenge Harrisburg’s gun control ordinance?
The state Supreme Court has decided to take on that question.
It was asked to do so by city officials, who appealed a September 2019 Commonwealth Court ruling that granted the state chapter of the Firearm Owners Against Crime standing to keep pursuing a court challenge to the gun law.
A contrary decision by the Supreme Court likely would end the FOAC case against Harrisburg and similar challenges to other municipal gun ordinances across the state.
Harrisburg’s measure is 11 years old, but the court fight arose after Mayor Eric Papenfuse recently ordered city police to enforce it to address resident concerns about gun violence.
The Commonwealth Court ruling allowed the FOAC suit to continue against ordinance regulations that:
• Bar anyone under 18 from carrying a gun in public unless they are accompanied by an adult.
• Prohibit the shooting of any guns by the public within the city for anything other than self-defense.
• Require gun owners to report to police any loss or theft of a gun within 48 hours of discovery.
• Ban guns from city parks.
The Commonwealth Court decision overturned a ruling by Dauphin County Judge Andrew H. Dowling, who found FOAC and its co-plaintiffs, a city resident and a commuter, lacked legal standing to bring the suit.
FOAC and other gun rights advocates have been challenging municipal firearms ordinances statewide on grounds that only the Legislature has the authority to set such limits.
The specific question the Supreme Court will address on the matter is: “Whether the Commonwealth Court’s decision to grant (FOAC), who have not been cited under the City of Harrisburg’s gun control ordinances and for whom any harm is remote and hypothetical, individual and associational standing to challenge the City of Harrisburg’s gun control ordinances, directly conflicts with this Court’s jurisprudence.”