Pennsylvania Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to State’s Firearms Preemption Law

Last updated on November 20th, 2024 at 01:24 pm

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has upheld the state’s firearm preemption laws, rebuffing efforts to have the law declared unconstitutional.

The firearm preemption laws (FPLs) at issue have barred municipal governments from setting gun control policies that are more strict than those already set at the state level.

A group of individual litigants filed a petition undo the preemption laws, with support from the Philadelphia city government. They argued gun violence is a public health threat in the state and the preemption laws can be directly challenged in court under a “state-created danger doctrine.”

The plaintiffs said but for the state’s FPLs, they would impose a requirement for prospective firearms purchasers to first obtain a permit. Such a permit-to-purchase requirement would go beyond the existing requirement that purchasers in the state must be able to pass a background check.

Further, the plaintiffs said if not for the state’s FPLs, they would also impose a purchase limit of one gun per month. They said they’d also implement extreme risk protection orders (ERPOs)—sometimes referred to as “red flag laws”—which provide a procedure by which courts can order a person’s firearms be confiscated if the court finds they pose a risk of harm to themselves or others, even if they haven’t been convicted of a crime.

A divided en banc panel of Pennsylvania’s lower Commonwealth Court sustained preliminary objections and dismissed the petition from the gun-control plaintiffs. The plaintiffs then petitioned the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to review the lower court’s decision.

In a Nov. 20 decision, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the lower court decision.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision notes neither they, nor the U.S. Supreme Court have endorsed the state-created danger doctrine the plaintiffs cited. Further, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled even if they used state-created doctrine, the plaintiffs couldn’t demonstrate a close enough link between the state’s FPLs and ensuing private acts of gun violence.

“While certain municipalities and residents thereof may believe, even justifiably, that our state government is not doing enough to remedy this problem and that particular local regulations are needed to do so but are preempted by the FPLs, we emphasize that ‘the adequacy of the legislation to cope with the problem and the wisdom or the lack thereof on the part of the legislature in framing [the] legislation is not for us to determine,'” the conclusion of the 55-page decision from the court reads.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision comes just two days after a federal appeals court rejected a petition by the state of Pennsylvania to remand a legal challenge to their 18-20 public firearm carry ban down to the federal district court level.