Advocates disappointed after court rejects Philly gun control lawsuit

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Safety advocates expressed disappointment after Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court unanimously upheld state laws that prevent local governments from enacting their own gun-control measures.

Wednesday’s ruling ends a lawsuit filed by the city of Philadelphia, anti-gun violence group CeaseFirePA, and Black and Hispanic residents of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh who argued that the state laws were unconstitutional and directly harmed communities affected by gun violence. The lawsuit failed to show the laws were unconstitutional, the court ruled.

Chuck Horton, a gunshot survivor and anti-violence advocate, told WHYY News that the violence infiltrating communities is devastating the futures of families on multiple levels. Without creative thinking on ways to combat the destruction that guns are having on cities, he said, lives and cultures will be lost forever.

“Yes, in some parts of our communities, guns are used for hunting to feed our families,” Horton said. “However, in our inner cities, guns are used to kill, maim, and destroy — and these three things happen on both sides of the gun.

“When a person pulls a trigger, they are destroying their future, creating an atmosphere of retaliation for their actions, and maybe a lifetime of incarceration.”

Those on the other end are even more profoundly at risk. While death is the most devastating outcome, even survivors face a lifetime of physical and mental trauma from gun violence.

“So when decisions are made by individuals who do not know the life of a shooter or survivor,” Horton said. “I wonder if they would change their decisions if gun violence was imposed on them or one of their loved ones.”

Warren Cooper, campaign coordinator of Take 5: Stop the Violence Campaign, told WHYY News the court decision represents a setback for the effort to control gun traffic in our city and embodies the urgency of developing alternative strategies for reducing gun violence.

He said that because the legislative and judicial processes are caught in the national tug-of-war between the “right to bear arms” and the “rights of those who don’t want to bear arms or be shot by them” — an “arm wrestling” contest that consistently favors the right to bear arms, Cooper said — there is a need to address gun violence from another angle.

“While it is true that fewer guns on the street would reduce access to their use in violent altercations, the root of the gun-violence problem is not the guns on the street,” Cooper said. “The root of the gun-violence problem rests in the mentality of the people who are in possession of those guns.”

He noted that the current conversations about gun control and violence prevention are primarily focused on the guns themselves. Instead, Cooper believes strategies are needed that focus on the people who hold the guns.

Dr. Nina Ahmad is a member-at-large of the Philadelphia City Council, where she serves as the Public Health Committee chair and a member of the Special Committee on Gun Violence Prevention. She recently introduced a resolution to take action on gun safety in the Pennsylvania General Assembly.

“I am deeply distraught by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision on firearms regulations that will continue to hamper Philadelphia’s ability to address this urgent public health crisis,” said Ahmad. “I am ready to work across the aisle to achieve our goal — zero lives lost to gun violence. I dare the Pennsylvania House and Senate Republicans to muster up the courage to do the same.”