PA:"City (Philly) to Sue State Over Gun Laws" (Phila bills added)

City to sue state over gun laws
By Nancy Petersen and Patrick Kerkstra
Inquirer Staff Writers

Fed up with foot-dragging in Harrisburg over gun control, Philadelphia is now taking its case to court.

City Councilman Darrell L. Clarke said last night that the city plans to file a lawsuit today in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court alleging that the General Assembly has failed in its duty to protect the residents of the city.

"It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the General Assembly is unwilling or unable to act," Clarke said in a telephone interview last night. "We have no choice but to go to court."

Straw purchases have proliferated dramatically because the state has failed to enact laws that rein them in, he said.

In a straw purchase, somebody legally acquires a firearm and then sells it to somebody else who is not eligible to own one, such as a convicted felon on parole or probation. Critics say that straw purchases are responsible for much of the firepower on the city's streets.

In addition to authorizing the suit today, Council intends to approve eight gun-control measures that have been languishing in Council for more than a year, Clarke said.

Among other things, the bills call for limiting handgun purchases to one a month, and for owners to report any guns that are lost or stolen, Clark said.


David Kairys, a professor at the Beasley School of Law at Temple University, said that the laws Council is expected to enact today should be valid because of the city's Home Rule Charter. But the charter's power is diminishing, he said.

"The legislature and the Supreme Court have so undercut it that it's hard to say we have home rule anymore," said Kairys, who in the 1990s led the city's legal team in an unsuccessful court challenge against handgun manufacturers.

He said he could not comment on the particulars of the lawsuit to be filed today because he hadn't seen it.

Clarke said that while several members of the city's Harrisburg delegation had worked tirelessly on the gun-control issue, they had not been able to sway their more-rural colleagues to their side.

"The fact that we are approaching 150 murders means that we can no longer wait for them to get their act together," he said. As of midnight Tuesday, 137 homicides had occurred in the city.

Legislation sponsored by Rep. Angel Cruz (D., Phila.) that called for gun registration and an annual fee of $10 a gun triggered a massive outcry from opponents who said they felt the legislation threatened their right to own guns. Several lawmakers who initially supported Cruz's measure have since backed off.

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GUN SUIT A BLAST AT HARRISBURG
LAWSUIT, NEW BILLS PUSH FOR CITY GUN CONTROL

EIGHT GUN-CONTROL bills, one of which would limit gun purchases to one per month, and another that would make failure to report a lost or stolen gun a crime, will be introduced in City Council today. Each is expected to easily pass, and be quickly signed by Mayor Street.

But the bills' sponsor, Councilman Darrell Clarke, will take an additional step. He will file suit in Common Pleas Court, arguing the city -and not the state -should be allowed to regulate guns.

It's a double-barrel blast, triggered by the rise in city shootings and homicides, often committed with illegally purchased guns. It's also triggered by Harrisburg's failure to consider, introduce, or let alone pass, meaningful gun-control laws.

The General Assembly may go through the motions of grappling with the gun issue. But despite demands from Philadelphia, including a charter initiative that granted the city jurisdiction over its gun laws and that was overwhelming approved by voters, the status quo remains.

A city of the first class such as Philadelphia shoud not be forced to suffer under gun laws more appropriate for rural jurisdictions. And Philadelphia is no longer alone, because other counties, such as Berks and Allegheny, suffer from gun violence.

Clarke's bills get to the heart of straw purchasing in which a gun is legally bought at a gun shop, then illegally sold out on the streets.

In addition to a citywide gun registry, another bill would prohibit people with a restraining order or a domestic-abuse case against them from legally owning guns.

The number of guns in Philadelphia is astonishing: Police confiscated about 6,000 guns last year. Another 1,000 came of the streets via gun buy- backs and turn-ins. About 86 percent of the city's 137 homicides this year were committed by handguns.

And even the feds struggle with this. A local spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives told Daily News columnist Elmer Smith that a major source of guns on the street come from "missing inventory" from licensed dealers.

Clarke's bills, if the state courts approve, can bring into check the chaos and killing that afflicts our city. State gun laws should not be, and cannot be, a one-size-fits-all proposition. *

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Police seize cache of weapons in raid on Franklinville home
By Sam Wood
Inquirer Staff Writer

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At the Franklinville house, troopers seized more than 30 handguns, long guns, and assault-weapon parts. Several of the weapons could have been converted into machine guns, Jones said.

They also recovered a "ballistic knife," a hybrid weapon that shoots a blade from a spring-loaded handle, Jones said.

Troopers arrested the arsenal's owner, Larry Biagi, 49, without incident at his home on New Pearl Street in Vineland, and charged him on multiple weapons counts. Biaggi, a Cumberland County scrap dealer, was being held last night on $10,000 bail at the Gloucester County Jail. . . .

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The statutory limitations of municipalities to regulate the possession, sale
and transfer of firearms, as upheld by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, has been duly
considered and incorporated within the body of this legislation. And, we take into
account the paramount interests of the public safety of the citizens of our City and
Commonwealth.

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