AMGOA Staff
Pennsylvania


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In a monumental decision issued this morning and secured by Chief Counsel Joshua Prince of Firearms Industry Consulting Group, the Commonwealth Court, en banc, overruled its prior precedent and held that it was "untenable" to require a plaintiff to declare in a complaint that he/she has violated or been prosecuted for an enacted ordinance and "must be overruled." The decision in Firearm Owners Against Crime (FOAC), et al. v. City of Harrisburg, et al., 1438 C.D. 2019 (September 12, 2019), specifically overrules the harmful case law established in NRA v. City of Pittsburgh, 999 A.2d 1256 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2010), appeal denied, 23 A.3d 543 (Pa. 2011), where the Commonwealth Court required plaintiffs bringing a challenge to an illegal ordinance prohibited by Article 1 Section 21 of the Pennsylvania Constitution and 18 Pa.C.S. § 6120 to "allege in their verified pleadings that they have actually violated the challenged ordinances, that they intend to violate the challenged ordinances, or that they have been prosecuted for violating the challenged ordinances."

https://blog.princelaw.com/2019/09/12/monumental-decision-commonwealth-court-overrules-prior-decision-regarding-standing-to-bring-a-challenge-to-an-unlawful-firearm-ordinance/?fbclid=IwAR00QVpiw8Zp6ARnfR00kMgJ7b5F3ozXhG0SSpvWChfxakW_6E9tnb5U3eQ