PA Bill Number: HB829
Title: In preliminary provisions, further providing for definitions;
Description: An Act amending the act of April 12, 1951 (P.L.90, No.21), known as the Liquor Code, in preliminary provisions, further providing for definitions;
Last Action: Signed in House
Last Action Date: Jul 3, 2024
Pittsburgh eyeing gun legislation in wake of synagogue massacre :: 11/11/2018
Pittsburgh will keep mourning. But it’s time to take action.
Mayor Bill Peduto said as much Friday in his Downtown office, shortly after an assembly in Point State Park honored the 11 people killed in the Tree of Life synagogue shooting.
His administration is talking with city council about legislation that would address certain powerful firearms, Mr. Peduto confirmed, although he wasn’t ready to delve into many details. Robert Bowers, the man accused of the Oct. 27 massacre, used an AR-15 assault rifle and three Glock .357 handguns, all legally purchased, according to authorities.
The burgeoning legislative effort “would challenge the state in what we [the city] can and cannot do regarding weapons that cause mass carnage,” Mr. Peduto said. Pennsylvania is among several dozen states with pre-emption provisions that concentrate — at the state level — much of the regulatory authority over firearms.
Mr. Peduto said such restrictions limit how municipalities can “protect our people.”
“We realize that there are common-sense reforms that will save people’s lives,” the mayor said in an earlier interview Friday. “If Harrisburg is unwilling to address those issues, then they need to be able to answer the reason why.”
He voiced hope that the U.S. House of Representatives, to fall under Democratic control after the midterm elections last week, might pass “meaningful reform that would potentially pre-empt state capitals from limiting cities.” He wanted to meet with council members before detailing prospective steps in Pittsburgh, Mr. Peduto said.
Still, advocates for statewide pre-emption have said the principle keeps gun rules uniform, easing compliance and preventing confusion among neighboring communities. Firearms owners could face an unwieldy mishmash of town-by-town gun rules if each municipality were left to draw up different standards, pre-emption proponents have argued.
“No amount of gun control is going to prevent a determined person from committing a heinous act,” said Dave Workman, communications director at the Bellevue, Wash.-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
He pointed to California, where he said gun restrictions are among the strictest in the country. There, in Thousand Oaks, a gunman, Ian David Long, killed 12 people last week in a country music bar before fatally turning a gun on himself. Long used a Glock 21 .45-caliber gun with an extended magazine that’s illegal in California, according to authorities there.
“They’ve already got gun control in California, and it has once again failed,” said Mr. Workman, who also is senior editor at thegunmag.com.
In Pennsylvania, state rules bar municipalities from regulating the ownership, possession, transfer or transportation of firearms. But cities have other powers — including taxing and zoning provisions — that could shape their legal options, said Shira Goodman, executive director at CeaseFirePA, a gun-control advocacy group.
Some legislative efforts at the local level, such as Pittsburgh’s attempt in 2008 to require the prompt reporting of lost and stolen firearms, have drawn protracted litigation from gun-rights advocates like the National Rifle Association. (The lost-and-stolen rule remains on the books but hasn’t been enforced.)
“Statewide and national [policy] solutions are better, because our borders are porous, especially with our cities,” Ms. Goodman said.
Three days after the Tree of Life shooting, Councilman Corey O’Connor said Pittsburgh should take a stand in addressing guns like the AR-15 fired in the synagogue. He expects Pittsburgh — and cities it partners with — will be sued over firearms-related policies they pursue, he said at the time.
“From our standpoint, I think we really can lead in building coalitions and show how when you’re united, you can make a difference,” Mr. O’Connor said Friday.
He anticipates internal meetings within days to involve Councilwoman Erika Strassburger, council President Bruce Kraus and the Peduto administration, he said. Ideas on the table are “all very general at this point,” Mr. O’Connor added, declining to get into many specifics that could change.
“We don’t have a lot of detail yet,” Mr. Kraus said.
Meanwhile, Mr. Peduto is contacting other mayors whose communities have endured similar gun violence, the mayor said. He called “mass homicide through the use of semi-automatic, automatic or assault rifles” an epidemic that demands federal attention.
He wants to collaborate with mayors and call on Congress “to make this an agenda item early next year.”
“I’m a big believer that everything that has been critical to the progress of the United States has begun at a local level,” Mr. Peduto said.
Adam Smeltz: 412-263-2625, asmeltz@post-gazette.com, @asmeltz.
