PA Bill Number: HB2235
Title: Providing for regulation of the meat packing and food processing industry by creating facility health and safety committees in the workplace; ...
Description: Providing for regulation of the meat packing and food processing industry by creating facility health and safety committees in the workplace; ... ...
Last Action: Referred to LABOR AND INDUSTRY
Last Action Date: Apr 25, 2024
Erie County Judge apparently has never read the PA Constitution. :: 06/21/2013
Judge denies injunction request from gun-rights activist By KEVIN FLOWERS, Erie Times-News kevin.flowers×news.com
An Erie gun-rights activist argued that he had a fundamental right to bring firearms to his planned Saturday gun rally at the gazebo in Perry Square.
Erie County President Judge Ernest J. DiSantis Jr. disagreed.
In a ruling issued just hours after a Thursday court hearing on the issue, DiSantis rejected Justin Dillon's request for a preliminary injunction that would have stopped the city from enforcing a city ordinance banning firearms in its parks.
DiSantis' ruling means that while Dillon can host his rally Saturday, anyone who brings a firearm to the event faces a fine of $100 to $300 and a maximum prison term of 90 days for failure to pay the fine.
Violation of the park-related city ordinance is a summary offense.
Dillon's Reading-area lawyer, Joshua Prince, said an emergency appeal of DiSantis' decision has been filed with the state's Commonwealth Court.
The gun rally is scheduled to start at 1 p.m. Saturday in Perry Square.
"Plaintiff has failed to show that a preliminary injunction will not adversely affect the public interest," DiSantis wrote in a nine-page opinion and order.
"No matter how one views the situation, the open possession of loaded firearms in a public park does affect the public interest."
Dillon, who lives in downtown Erie, is founder of the Erie-based Open Carry Pennsylvania, and has organized rallies to protest increased gun control.
Prince said Saturday's rally will go on as scheduled. "We expect for the Commonwealth Court to decide the issue of an injunction before the rally," Prince said.
Both Dillon and Prince have argued that the city's ordinance violates the right to bear arms under both the Pennsylvania Constitution and the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
At Thursday's hearing, Prince said Dillon has had similar rallies at Perry Square, in July, January and February, without incident. Dillon and other attendees brought firearms to those rallies, Prince said.
Further, the city did not enforce the ordinance during those previous rallies, Prince said.
However, City Solicitor Greg Karle argued that was not the issue before DiSantis.
Karle said in court that the city's ordinance is constitutional because it does not prohibit the carrying of all firearms, but places reasonable restrictions on the practice.
A citizen's Second Amendment rights "are not unlimited," Karle argued. "You can regulate guns in sensitive places."
Dillon told DiSantis, at the hearing, that he doesn't want either himself or those who attend the rally to face fines or penalties for bringing firearms -- a key reason why he fought the city's ordinance in court.
"I am scared to get a fine for having a peaceful demonstration at Perry Square," Dillon said.
The city's special-events and licensing coordinator, David Rocco, did not require Dillon to get a permit for a Feb. 23 rally in Perry Square.
Rocco said previously that the city ordinance prohibited only hunting with firearms in parks.
Karle, at that time, said he was unaware of the Feb. 23 rally and had to research the law.
KEVIN FLOWERS can be reached at 870-1693 or by e-mail. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNflowers.
