Court Opinion

ID: 9518056
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:41:56.217487+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:27:12.616907
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING AND DISSENTING OPINION BY
Judge SMITH-RIBNER.
I concur in the decision of the majority to affirm the order of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County that the National Rifle Association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the Pennsylvania Association of Firearms Retailers, Colosimo’s, Inc., Firing Line, Inc., Jon Mi-rowitz, Eugene Walworth, John Olexa and Charles H. Cox, III lacked standing to challenge three of the City’s five Gun Ordinances on constitutional grounds. The Ordinances were adopted on April 10, 2008 in the City’s ongoing efforts to curtail the proliferation and flow of illegal weapons on the streets of Philadelphia.
The three Ordinances are identified by the majority, and they include: Bill No. 080017 (“Imminent Danger Ordinance” authorizing temporary seizure of firearms from persons found by the court, upon affidavit of two police officers or a district attorney, to pose a risk of imminent personal harm to themselves or to others); Bill No. 080018-A (“Domestic Abuse Ordinance” prohibiting persons subject to an active protection from abuse order from acquiring or possessing firearms when such order provides for confiscation of the firearms); and Bill No. 080032-A (“Lost or Stolen Gun Ordinance” requiring firearm owners to report their lost or stolen firearms to law enforcement officials within twenty-four hours after discovery of the loss or theft).
I part with the majority however with respect to its decision to affirm the trial court’s order in connection with the remaining two Ordinances on the premise that the legislature has preempted all local regulation of firearms even when they are used for unlawful purposes. These Ordinances are identified as Bill No. 080033 (“Assault Weapons Ordinance” prohibiting persons from owning, possessing or transferring any contraband weapon, accessory or ammunition) and Bill No. 080035-A *84(“Straw Purchaser Ordinance” prohibiting any person when buying a handgun from acting as a straw purchaser and prohibiting the purchase of more than one handgun within any thirty-day period, except as to any person who is not engaged in the unlawful conduct of acting as a straw purchaser).
I dissent from the majority’s determination that the Ordinances under review are preempted by Section 6120 of the Pennsylvania Uniform Firearms Act of 1995, as amended, 18 Pa.C.S. § 6120, and I reject the contention that it is “crystal clear” from the Supreme Court’s holding in Ortiz v. Commonwealth, 545 Pa. 279, 681 A.2d 152 (1996), that the legislature has denied all municipalities the power to regulate ownership, possession, transfer or transportation of firearms, even where they are used for unlawful purposes. The majority agrees with the City that preemption “appears to be limited to the lawful use of firearms by its very terms,” op. at 82, but notwithstanding this concession the majority proceeds to rely on OHiz, which did not resolve this issue either expressly or impliedly. Total preemption in this area of the law is not as clear as the majority presumes, and its view remains rebutted by the dissent in Clarke v. House of Representatives, 957 A.2d 361 (Pa.Cmwlth.2008), notice of appeal filed (74 MAP 2008, October 6, 2008), until the Supreme Court issues a definitive, clear and precise decision in the matter.
I emphasize the Supreme Court’s statement in Nutter v. Dougherty, 595 Pa. 340, 361, 938 A.2d 401, 414 (2007), that it could not “stress enough that a home rule municipality’s exercise of its local authority is not lightly intruded upon,” with any ambiguities regarding such local authority to be resolved in the municipality’s favor. In reviewing preemption case law, the Supreme Court noted its prior explicit reaffirmation of the “stringency” of its preemption precedent by noting that it had “found preemption only in the areas of alcoholic beverages, anthracite strip mining, and banking[,]” 595 Pa. at 362, 938 A.2d at 414, as of its 1999 writing in Mars Emergency Med. Servs. v. Township of Adams, 559 Pa. 309, 740 A.2d 193 (1999).
At the time of the decision in Nutter as well as the decision in Mars EMS the Supreme Court certainly was aware of Ortiz, involving local regulation that banned ownership of certain types of assault weapons within City boundaries. It is logical to presume, therefore, that the omission in Nutter of firearms regulation as an area in which the Supreme Court had found total preemption leaves open the question of whether total preemption does in fact exist in this area, especially when the issue involves local regulation of unlawful as opposed to lawful use of firearms within a municipality’s boundaries.
A final point involves the majority’s quote from OHiz that regulation of firearms is not a matter of concern merely in Philadelphia. While that statement is true, it should be analyzed in conjunction with the rights and powers of the City as a home rule municipality to exercise authority to protect its citizens along with its police officers against gun violence caused by the unlawful use of firearms within the City’s boundaries. In the dissent in Clarke I emphasized the senseless deaths that occur from gun violence suffered in the City by innocent citizens and by police officers acting in the line of duty. I take judicial notice again of the fact that more innocent citizens have been killed in Philadelphia from gun violence and that additional Philadelphia police officers were killed from gun violence in 2008 and in 2009 while acting in the line of duty: Sergeant Patrick McDonald and Police Officer *85John Pawlowski.1 In his dissent in Ortiz, Former Justice Nigro summed up the need for a City besieged by violent crime involving use of firearms to enact local legislation to protect its citizens, which in this case include not only the City’s innocent citizens but also include its police officers acting in the line of duty.

. See http://www.odmp.org.