PA Bill Number: SB1198
Title: In plants and plant products, providing for plant and pollinator protection; conferring powers and duties on the Department of Agriculture and ...
Description: In plants and plant products, providing for plant and pollinator protection; conferring powers and duties on the Department of Agriculture and .. ...
Last Action: Referred to AGRICULTURE AND RURAL AFFAIRS
Last Action Date: May 17, 2024
Gun owners group (FOAC) wins round in battle over pistols in the park case :: 12/17/2016
A divided Commonwealth Court panel on Friday gave a gun owners' group a victory in at least Round One of its attempt to shoot down an ordinance that restricts the possession of firearms in public parks.
Judges Patricia A. McCullough and Renee Cohn Jubelirer overturned a Montgomery County judge's refusal to grant an injunction the Firearm Owners Against Crime sought to bar enforcement of the contested law in Lower Merion Township.
The two state judges found that the gun group provided enough evidence preliminarily to show it might win a lawsuit it filed claiming the township measure violates the Pennsylvania Uniform Firearms Act, so an injunction is warranted.
Senior Judge Dan Pellegrini, the third jurist on the state court panel, disagreed. He said an injunction isn't needed because the township hasn't enforced its no-guns-in-the-parks regulation, not even when the gun group held a rally in a Lower Merion park to protest the ordinance.
The crux of the dispute is a law Lower Merion officials passed in 2011 that bars anyone from carrying or firing guns in any of its parks "unless exempted." A violation carries a fine of up to $600.
Yet when the firearm owners' group staged a fully-armed rally in a township park to protest the restriction, no one was charged, McCullough noted in her court's majority opinion.
Regardless of whether the ordinance's magazine is empty, its mere existence seems to violate the Uniform Firearms Act, McCullough found. No such "blanket ban" on gun possession can be found in the Crimes Code, she noted.
She rejected the township's argument that it has a right to curb gun possession on property it owns. The injunction sought by the gun group would therefore prevent the enforcement of an apparently illegal law while the court battle over the ordinance is fought, McCullough concluded.
In siding with the township, Pellegrini argued there would be no harm in leaving the ordinance in place for the moment.
He didn't agree that the measure violated state laws, and backed the township's stance that it can regulate gun possession on its property. That same tenet applies to county courthouses and other public facilities where gun possession is banned for safety reasons, Pellegrini wrote.
In any case, he noted the Lower Merion ordinance "treats persons who lawful carry non-concealed firearms in its parks as being exempt" from prosecution. So, he concluded, there is no need for an injunction since the chance that anyone will be wrongly penalized under the township regulation is "remote and speculative."
http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/12/gun_owners_win_round_in_battle.html#incart_river_home
