Last month, the Pittsburgh City Council passed three gun control laws in violation of a state law prohibiting municipalities from doing any such thing. Lawsuits quickly followed, and earlier this week an Allegheny County Common Pleas judge put those laws on hold while the lawsuits play out.
All parties agreed to the stay during a Monday morning meeting held in Judge Joseph James’ chambers between city lawyers and legal counsel representing opponents of the laws.
“That’s consistent with the city’s goal all along, which is to put this in front of the court, let the courts decide whether these ordinances are permissible under Pennsylvania law,” said Eric Tirschwell, an attorney with gun-control advocacy organization Everytown Law who is representing the city pro bono. “The city is not looking to prejudice anyone while those decisions are made.”
Everytown Law is the legislative arm of the national Everytown for Gun Safety organization.
Again, Everytown for Gun Safety has, to date, never actually done anything to teach anyone gun safety. They are a gun control organization.
Trischwell's claim that they're just trying to "let the courts decide whether these ordinances are permissible under Pennsylvania law" is also laughable. If they truly wanted to simply challenge the legality of the state's preemption statute, they could've passed something silly that no city resident could possibly violate as a test case. Instead, they passed laws that Michael Bloomberg's Everytown organization wants to be law nationwide.
A question of standing
Everytown also is attempting to make a case that the Pittsburgh residents challenging the laws with the help of the NRA lack standing to actually challenge the laws.
One ordinance prohibits “use” of “assault weapon[s],” defined as discharging, loading, brandishing, pointing, or “employing an Assault Weapon for any purpose prohibited by the laws of Pennsylvania or of the United States.”
“Unless one of these plaintiffs intends to do one of these things, these plaintiffs do not have standing,” Mr. Tirschwell said.
Mr. [Joshua] Prince disagreed, highlighting that his plaintiff Matthew Boardley, who is represented in the Firearms Owners Against Crime lawsuit, carries an AR-15 for his security duties at Heinz Field.
One could safely assume that Boardley carries his AR-15 loaded.
