Denver fair Lancaster Open carry.

[Deleted]

On a separate note, what's a Constable doing in the mix?

Could be breaking the law... Armed security work is not in the Constable's Fee Schedule.

[staylo]

It's not a preemption violation for them to have rules against firearms in the park. They can not CRIMANALIZE at the local level possession of a firearm in the park... that would be a preemption violation.

Please elaborate. I'm trying to understand the distinction you are making.

[donotknowme]

They can make all the rules they want. They just can't enforce them criminally.

[streaker69]

Could be breaking the law... Armed security work is not in the Constable's Fee Schedule.

On a side note, is directing traffic from a church parking lot in their fee schedule?

[Deleted]

Please elaborate. I'm trying to understand the distinction you are making.

The preemption statute says that municipalities can't (not in exact words) make the firearms laws of the Commonwealth more restrictive than what's provided in the UFA. So they can't decide to criminalize things by ordinance that are not crimes in the UFA. So they can't make it a crime to carry in a park or in a town hall meeting room.

What they can do is make rules governing the use of the park or the meeting room that include the possession of firearms... as long as they don't attach criminal penalties to them. The problem comes when you decide not to follow the rules and are asked to leave... then you get into a whole other realm that has not been tested yet by the courts.

[tl_3237]

Please elaborate. I'm trying to understand the distinction you are making.

Been debated over the years on PAFOA but best summed up by our resident barrister:

The weakness in the pro-rights argument is the word "regulate". As I wrote here in 2006, it clearly includes at least all local ordinances and other exercises of purely governmental authority, but may not apply to the powers inherent in property ownership; or, as the court said in the Erie case, "It could be argued that the City may be empowered under that grant of power from the State to regulate the possession of firearms in its parks pursuant to its proprietary power to control conduct that takes place on its property rather than through an ordinance of general application enacted pursuant to its general police powers."

Every municipality has inherent management rights over the property that it owns, just like you and I have some arbitrary rights to exclude certain folks from our homes or offices. The limitations on that arbitrary power are pretty much set out by statute, at least so far as public accommodations go; so you can exclude anyone from your home, but you'd get into serious trouble if your office excluded blacks or gays or Baptists or old folks or the handicapped.

The only argument against local government having non-penal "rules" against guns, would be that government entities are bound to respect civil rights in ways that other property owners are not bound. Problem is, our state and federal governments already disrespect gun rights in many ways, as anyone walking into a courthouse or Post Office can attest.

Here, I'll make life easy for those who like to check the facts themselves.

Here's the unedited first post, from December 2006, 8 years before the Erie case, where I pretty clearly state that cities can't criminalize gun possession, but they could arguably ban guns on city-owned property using their power as property owners. This was aimed at discouraging the activists from attacking "policies" in the courts, because the courts would likely go against us on the non-criminal policies.

http://forum.pafoa.org/general-2/150...html#post15891

Here's Footnote 9 of Dillon vs City of Erie, where the court shot down the criminal statute but basically told every municipality (via dicta, which they put in for a purpose) that they probably could ban guns on municipal property if they did it without summary ordinances, just like I warned you, for free, in 2006:

9. Not raised by the City is Section 3710 of the Third Class City Code, Act of June 23, 1931, P.L. 932, as amended, 53 P.S. § 38710, which provides, in pertinent part, that the City “shall at all times be invested with the power and authority to adopt suitable rules and regulations concerning the use and occupation of [its] parks and playgrounds by the public generally․” It could be argued that the City may be empowered under that grant of power from the State to regulate the possession of firearms in its parks pursuant to its proprietary power to control conduct that takes place on its property rather than through an ordinance of general application enacted pursuant to its general police powers. Similarly, Section 11.215 of the regulations of the Commonwealth's Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, 17 Pa.Code § 11.215, generally prohibits “[p]ossessing an uncased device, or uncasing a device, including a firearm, ․ that is capable of discharging or propelling a projectile ․” in state parks, subject to a number of enumerated exceptions.

The rationale is that PAFOA is known as a source of accurate facts and law, particularly related to firearms. Stating that preemption definitely bars non-penal rules on municipal property is NOT accurate, and needs to be corrected.

The Erie decision not only didn't confirm that non-penal policies are preempted, the judges went out of their way to clarify that the ruling against the penal statute had no bearing on non-penal rules. It was the equivalent of someone saying "You may not enter the premises Monday through Friday, but I'm not saying that you can't come in on Saturday or Sunday." There's usually a point to adding such a caveat.

If someone makes a false claim, don't blame the people correcting that false claim.

Click on the little symbol following the "Gunlawyer001" ID in the quotations to see the post contextually in a thread.

[Deleted]

Not on their fee schedule but specifically authorized by the vehicle code. http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/...tn=2&subsctn=0

[Deleted]

Tl is the "cite" man!!!!

[streaker69]

Not on their fee schedule but specifically authorized by the vehicle code. http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/...tn=2&subsctn=0

Thanks. There's a church down here that at one point had the ushers out directing traffic so people could get out, I think they got told to knock it off because they weren't authorized to stop traffic on the road to wave people out of the parking lot. Since then there's been a couple of tacticool constables out directing.

[staylo]

The preemption statute says that municipalities can't (not in exact words) make the firearms laws of the Commonwealth more restrictive than what's provided in the UFA. So they can't decide to criminalize things by ordinance that are not crimes in the UFA. So they can't make it a crime to carry in a park or in a town hall meeting room.

What they can do is make rules governing the use of the park or the meeting room that include the possession of firearms... as long as they don't attach criminal penalties to them. The problem comes when you decide not to follow the rules and are asked to leave... then you get into a whole other realm that has not been tested yet by the courts.

OK. So if they're going to make a 'rule' that supposedly doesn't violate preemption, how do they enforce the 'rule' in a way that they don't make it 'criminal'?