Some say gun-suit loss could be win

A lawsuit filed yesterday by City Council members, seeking to override a state law preventing local gun regulations, has little chance of succeeding in court but could help to rally support for a broader gun-control effort in Harrisburg, observers said yesterday.

Council members Darrell L. Clarke and Donna Reed Miller sued the state House and Senate, asking Common Pleas Court to allow seven city gun-control ordinances to be implemented without approval by the legislature, as currently required by law.

"We can no longer continue to have vigils, we can no longer continue to have task forces that go nowhere, we can no longer continue to have marches that are essentially a march to nowhere," said Clarke, who along with Reed Miller sponsored the seven measures, including limits on monthly gun purchases, that were passed in May.

They are treading on ground where their predecessors failed - most notably in a 1996 state Supreme Court decision that turned back Philadelphia's attempt to regulate assault weapons, and a 1999 attempt to hold gun manufacturers accountable for the city's violence epidemic.

The lawsuit takes the bold - and not typically successful - tack of asking the Supreme Court to reverse the 1996 decision upholding the legislature's 1994 law specifically forbidding municipalities from regulating guns.

"That's not an easy thing to do," said the Council members' attorney, George Bochetto, who filed the case along with lawyer George Gossett Jr.

Bruce Ledewitz, professor of constitutional law at Duquesne University, said the case could very well be dismissed, and he doubted that the Supreme Court would even consider an appeal.

"They can't do what the General Assembly denies them the power to do," Ledewitz said.

David Kairys, a professor of constitutional law at Temple and a gun-control advocate, also said the chances of the lawsuit prevailing are slim, unless the Council members can demonstrate a public-health emergency in Philadelphia as a result of the lack of gun restrictions.

"I can't say the odds are in their favor," Kairys said.

But if the Council members can show the court new evidence, such as New York City's progress against crime over the last decade with its own, stricter gun laws, there may be a chance, Kairys said.

Regardless, the suit can have an "organizing effect," Ledewitz said. Clarke and Reed Miller, if they are able to put on evidence that gun restrictions can reduce crime, can be successful.