PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Removed from table
Last Action Date: May 1, 2024
PA Preemption - Hatfield gun reporting ordinance up for repeal in light of new state law :: 11/12/2014
Hatfield Township >> A state law passed last month and signed by Gov. Corbett has caught the eye of Hatfield Township, and could cause that township to remove a local ordinance regarding gun sales.
Specifically, Hatfield’s 2009 ordinance regarding the reporting of stolen firearms could now be vulnerable to a challenge under the state’s Act 192 signed into law last week - thus solicitor Christen Pionzio’s recommendation to remove the local code as soon as possible.
“Recently, a bill was passed which gives national organizations standing to come into local municipalities and challenge” local ordinances like Hatfield’s, Pionzio told the board.
Originally numbered House Bill 80 and signed into law by Corbett last week, the bill grants standing to national organizations such as the National Rifle Association which seek to challenge local codes, stating that “a person adversely affected by an ordinance,a resolution, regulation, rule, practice or any other action promulgated or enforced by a county, municipality or township ... may seek declaratory or injunctive relief and actual damages in an appropriate court.” The bill also defines “person adversely affected” as a resident who may legally buy firearms, or “a membership organization” in which the local resident is a member.
That could be applied to local codes like Chapter 143 of Hatfield’s township code, modified by a 2009 ordinance which states that any owner of a firearm that is lost or stolen must report the loss to township police within 72 hours of discovering it’s lost, should the national group find and back a local resident who opposes it.
“Organizations like the NRA are very keen on throwing their weight around, saying ‘This is a Second Amendment issue,and therefore local municipalities should not have any ordinances on their books relative to firearms,” she said.
“The argument is that illegal firearms aren’t reported, and those people are breaking the laws anyway, so they’re not going to follow our ordinance, no matter what - the risk, I think, is greater than the benefit of having the ordinance on our books,” she said.
Even worse for the township, Pionzio told the board - the bill states that if the township chooses to defend the court cases and loses, it would be responsible for “covering the legal fees of both sides - basically, you fund the entire fight if you lose.”
A fiscal impact study for the bill states that it will have “no adverse impact on Commonwealth funds. It could impact local government finances to the extent that any local government has an ordinance, resolution, rule or practice successfully challenged in court and is required to pay damages.”
Several state lawmakers as well as the cities of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh filed a lawsuit against the state on Monday, claiming the law’s passage violated transparency rules by being added to an unrelated bill.
Hatfield Commissioner Scott Brown, who was board president when the initial Hatfield ordinance was passed in 2009, said that rule was recommended by then-police Chief Mark Toomey and was based on suggestions made by regional and state police chiefs associations.
“When a police chief says ‘This gives us one more tool to help protect the safety of the residents of Hatfield Township,’ there is no way I wouldn’t support that,” Brown said.
The recent legislation, Brown said, was entered into an unrelated bill after legislators were, in his words, “blackmailed by the NRA,” and Brown said the township now has “a gun to our head, we’ve been blackmailed” into repealing the local code.
“Of course I don’t want to incur legal expenses for our township, but we have many people talk about ‘local control, we ought to decide things at a local level,’ and then pull stunts like this,” he said.
After discussion on the timing of the state legislation and when local boards would have to comply, Pionzio said she was worried about the township’s exposure if the organization can find a local resident to claim harm - “I don’t want to face that kind of exposure if we could eliminate it.”
The board gave its informal consensus to Pionzio to proceed with drafting a repeal of the 2009 ordinance, and the repeal measure could be approved when Hatfield’s commissioners next meet, at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 19.
Montgomery Township police Chief Scott Bendig said he’s discussed the recent Act 192 lawsuit with township staff, and they’ve determined that “we don’t have anything of that nature on the books” that could require repeal in light of the new law.
The Associated Press contributed information to this story.
