Pennsylvania House, Senate Pass Bills On Challenges To Local Gun Laws
HARRISBURG, Pa. (CBS) -- The state House and Senate this week each passed their own versions of legislation to revive a law – struck down by a court ruling – that made it easier for gun rights activists and groups to sue municipalities like Philadelphia that enact their own gun restrictions.
The gun law was struck down not over the substantive issue of whether municipalities have the right to pass their own gun laws or who has standing to sue, but because the language was inserted into a bill on an unrelated subject. A day after the state Senate passed a bill to revive the law, Montgomery County Democrat Madeleine Dean spoke just before the House passed its own version of the legislation Wednesday.
"It's an unprecedented expansion of standing," Dean said. "So standing goes to any person who legally can own a gun in Pennsylvania to sue any municipality for any firearms ordinance whatsoever."
A spokesman says majority leaders of the House will confer with Senate leaders on how to go forward, but any bill that gets to Governor Wolf's desk faces a veto.