Guns of Contention: If Philly says no, Florida can say yes

-- Kenneth Sharper, 29, of North Philadelphia: Sharper, who has an Act 235 license and a Philadelphia gun permit, said that he was working security in 2008 at the Players Club, in Northeast Philadelphia, when he and a police officer "had words, like two grown men."

After closing time, Sharper said, police arrested him for disorderly conduct and public intoxication and took him into custody. Sharper said that he never drinks at work and that cops refused to give him a sobriety or blood test. He said that he was held for eight hours and that police took his gun and his Philadelphia permit and have not returned them.

He now carries a Florida nonresident permit and still has a valid Act 235 license.

'THESE GUYS AREN'T THUGS'

Many of the men whose guns were taken said that they were told to write a letter to the police commissioner to seek the return of their firearm. Two of the men wrote letters but said that they received no response.

Guy Sciolla, a defense lawyer whose firm is handling at least 10 such civil suits, said that the men should not have been "separated from their legally possessed firearms."

Sciolla said that even though some officers may not like the "loophole," their disdain for the law should not allow them to circumvent it.

"These guys aren't thugs, they're going about their business, going to work, and they've complied with the law," he said of the men whose guns were confiscated.

"If the bottom line is the police are upset because they are going around them, it's OK if they want to take it personally, but you can't use arrest powers because you're upset on a personal level."

Mary Catherine Roper, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania's Philadelphia office, said that the cases seem "pretty outrageous."

"This idea of taking people's guns who are carrying them legally and arresting them is absurd," she said. "The police don't get to decide what is a crime - they only get to enforce what is a crime.

"They are simply acting as vigilantes here and deciding they know better than the law."

Straw, of the City Solicitor's Office civil-rights unit, said that his department is handling about eight such cases of "constitutional claims that civil rights were violated by us taking their property and by them being falsely arrested."

Healy, the special adviser to the police commissioner, said that he is working on uniform guidelines for officers on the street on how to handle nonresident gun permits.

Meanwhile, Roper said that citizens should remain wary of police who arrest people complying with the law and take their property, even if it is a gun.

"The public may be saying, 'You're getting guns off the street,' " Roper said.

"But there's got to come a point where you want your police, of all people, to respect the law.

"This isn't technical, it's fundamental."