Pittsburgh is claiming that it will revive its assault weapons ban, which was never taken off the books officially, for the G20 summit next month. Whether this law is still on the books or not (Philadelphia’s still is too) is irrelevant. The law was thrown out in court, and is therefore no law. If the City of Pittsburgh tries to enforce it, they are acting under color of law.
The only way that we’re going to get cities to stop shit like this is to hurt them. This would be a great opportunity for a group of activists, in consultation with an attorney, to get themselves arrested. You can then proceed to file a civil rights lawsuit under Section 1983 against the people who demanded this non-law be enforced. Civil rights lawsuits let you sue public officials, in their personal or official capacity, who act under color of law.
This would be how to do useful open carry activism. Think someone will step up?
What’s the point if they are then subsequently “acting like jerks” for openly carrying later on once they’ve won a suit? So, open carry can be legitimate as a means to an end you consider illegitimate? That doesn’t seem logically continuous.
The open carry in this instance is just a mean to provoke arrest. There are other means you could probably think of. The end is not illegitimate. The end is to make officials pay for breaking the law, which is going to be the only way you’re going to get them to stop doing it. They aren’t going to do it just because it’s the right thing to do.
This is probably a very unsophisticated opinion, but:
You are right that nothing works with public officials except to hurt them. But personally, before I would put my ass on the line for something like this, I would want assurances from a very competent attorney that there would be a high probability of that happening. My gut tells me the participants would be vindicated in court to the extent of having their convictions overturned, but that the courts would also find some way to allow the guilty officials to walk away pain-free. The participants and their supporters would be out a lot of time and money, and it would all be in a days work for the offending scumbuckets. They’d do something similar again next year.