West Mifflin, Pennsylvania’s mayor is the latest to try and break state law by supporting municipal gun controls. Supported by his membership in Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun group, the Borough Council will take up a proposal tonight to mandate that gun owners report their lost or stolen guns within an arbitrary time period, putting the burden of proof on the accused rather than the state. These ordinances are currently being challenged by the NRA in courts across the state.
Recently, Homestead Borough did the same thing, becoming the 10th city in Pennsylvania to violate the state preemption laws and the state Supreme Court’s Ortiz v. Commonwealth decision. Last night, Clairton became the 11th, though the first non-MAIG-mayor-lead city to do so. However, the proposal was pushed by extremely anti-gun Rep. David Levdansky who has recently taken up the charge of CeaseFirePA.
View Bloomberg’s Anti-Gun Mayors in Pennsylvania in a larger map
I’ve updated the map to reflect the mayors who are pushing Bloomberg’s agenda in violation of state law and the Supreme Court’s decision. At this point, it’s not enough to just track members and former members of the group. Bloomberg is hiring out from the Brady Campaign to try and undermine our state legislature and state courts.
Bloomberg is an elitist of the highest order. I truly suppose he considers himself above the law, or at least that laws standing in his way are not important.
For politicians, often the next step from elitist is to tyrant.
Why is the PA AG not prosecuting those passing the illegal laws? Does the state have no enforcement statutes?
That is not how the challenges work. Citizens have to challenge the laws as violating preemption and Ortiz. NRA has brought suit against several of these towns. Unfortunately, until a town actually tries to charge someone with these laws, they have no standing. Some towns admit that these are illegal, so some administrators have actually said they don’t intend to enforce them.
This may be a very stupid question .. but what is his end game?
Is he trying to change state law? Because it looks to me like he is just giving more and more people a chance to challenge his agenda in the courts (which is probably counter productive to his cause).
Yes, their goal is to change state law. This and one-gun-a-month have been the pet issues for the folks Bloomberg is working with locally. As mentioned earlier, they have also started working with the administration to provide them cover on the issues.
Pennsylvania is still perceived to a very strong gun state. I mean think about the verbal gymnastics that Obama went through to try and make up for the bitter gun owner comments. Even Hillary tried to appeal to gun owning Democrats here. I do believe that Bloomberg is trying to end that perception. It’s why he has spent so much in terms of recruiting here and is arguably making the boldest legislative moves here as well.
I am not typically in favor of more laws, but would legislation allowing for punitive enforcement against the enacting of preemption violating ordinances be a sensible measure?
I’m surprised that no one has taken Bloomberg to the woodshed (figuratively/legally), either on criminal or civil statutes, and spanked him soundly.