The Brady Campaign is joining the NRA lawsuit against Lost and Stolen in Pittsburgh on the side of the City of Pittsburgh.
“When the NRA sued Pittsburgh, it made the national press,” Mr. Shields said. “I was contacted by a representative of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which offered pro bono services to the city.
“I spoke with the city solicitor, and he was more than pleased that help was on the way. He and two other attorneys were working on it, and our Law Department is stretched already.”
I don’t know Mr. Shields, the Brady Campaign’s track record in court lately hasn’t exactly been stellar, and the law in this case is not exactly on the city’s side.
“The only people that would have a problem with this reasonable ordinance are people who are trafficking or otherwise supplying the criminal gun market and then want to get away with it by later claiming that their gun was lost or stolen,” he said.
Or people who recognize that supplying guns to criminals is already unlawful, and is a felony. And they might even recognize that the state should be forced to meet its burden in proving the crime. It should not get to bring a charge under an easier crime to prosecute because it can’t meet its burden, and believes the party to be guilty as charged. That’s not what a just society does. Innocident people will end up criminals because of these laws.
“Innocent people will end up criminals because of these laws.”
Which, of course, is the goal.
I guess even having state-wide preemption doesn’t mean there won’t be a patchwork of laws to navigate and lawsuits the NRA feels obligated to undertake…
No, it doesn’t. But in this case we have legal protections on the books that will help us fight it, before anyone ends up in jail because of the law. Without preemption, this would turn into a mess very quickly. We already used the law to get rid of the worst of what Philadelphia tried last year.
“Lost or stolen” is the first step to criminalizing private sales.
Nothing more and nothing less.
Here’s your sign…
I know the sound bit of the elected pgh official saying “We know it’s illegal, sue us” is somewhere (just haven’t managed to find it yet). That’d kill the whole thing pretty quickly.