Court ruling re: Harleysville park carry

[BB62]

http://www.thereporteronline.com/art...9760013759.txt

This part burned my britches:

“Any member of the community should know they will alarm people while openly displaying a gun while out in the community,” he said. “It’s just foolish.”

**********
Have gun, will travel ... in municipal parks.

The issue of a section of Pennsylvania law came up for debate at a Lower Salford Parks Board meeting last month, and it brings to light how the law may affect other municipalities in the area.

The regulation in question states “no county, municipality or township may in any manner regulate the lawful ownership, possession, transfer or transportation of firearms, ammunition or ammunition components when carried or transported for purposes not prohibited by the

laws of this commonwealth.”

The law, enacted Jan. 30, 2007, and endorsed by 16 members of the state House basically says that anyone who is not prohibited from owning a firearm in the state can carry a handgun in public, no license required, and the gun must be visibly displayed, or not concealed.

A municipality may not enact any ordinance or take any other action dealing with the regulation of the transfer, ownership, possession or transportation of a firearm. It can, however, enact an ordinance, upon approval in a public referendum, that regulates the discharge of firearms within its boundaries.

The Lower Salford situation revolved around resident Derek Price, of Meetinghouse Road, who brought to the attention of the supervisors and the park board that the township’s regulation of prohibiting guns in its parks not only conflicts with state law, but also abridges the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that guarantees the right of citizens to bear arms.

“There are stipulations in the state Constitution that permit that, and we are not in a position to try and supercede and go over what the state tells us what the rights are,” said Kent Krauss, Lower Salford Township Parks Board chairman.

Krauss said the parks board is an advisory board to the supervisors. His board met and discussed the issue and passed it on to the supervisors, he said.

Township solicitor Jim Garrity agreed with Price, and Krauss said Garrity is working with the board to come up with some sort of plan.

“It’s beyond our decision,” he said last month. “I think, as a whole, the board would like to prohibit weapons, but it’s not something that is up to us.”

Krauss said there’s been very little comment on the situation. He expected the supervisors to review the law and do whatever was appropriate.

“As a father of two young children, I don’t want to see (firearms be permitted in parks),” he said. “I’m very hopeful it will remain as it’s been.”

The feeling is Lower Salford will allow guns to be visibly displayed on a person in township parks. Township policy is to question anyone bearing a gun in the park.

The township does prohibit the discharge of firearms in township parks.

“The solicitor reviewed it and we could remove the prohibition on legal carry,” Lower Salford Township Chief Thomas Medwid said. “If one had a permit to carry a concealed weapon, then they could have been carrying in parks all along.”

He said on a constitutional basis, a local ordinance cannot supersede state law and you can’t prohibit open carry.

“If it doesn’t say ‘township parks,’ then the assumption is it’s OK in township parks.” he said.

He said the state doesn’t prohibit carrying guns in parks. There is a misconception between concealed carry and open carry, he said.

Concealed carry is regulated by the state and then by the county, he said. To get a permit for a concealed weapon, one would need to apply with the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department and state the reason for concealment, be it self-defense, business or law enforcement purposes.

With this issue, Medwid doesn’t expect it to be a problem.

“Am I expecting to be inundated with people? No, I’m not. We are aware of it and the solicitor is researching the ordinance,” he said. “We are not expecting a large increase of people that want to openly carry firearms.”

Lansdale and Montgomery Township both have prohibitions against discharging a firearm in their respective parks.

Lt. Gordon Simes of Montgomery Township police said township parks are posted with warnings of no carrying or discharging of firearms.

“It will be enforced until such a time a decision is made to tell us to change the ordinance,” Simes said. “If something were to come down from supervisors, the parks and recreation ordinance would not be null and void because of one clause that’s stricken.”

Sgt. Robert McDyre of Lansdale Borough Police said officers have encountered individuals carrying BB guns in parks, but couldn’t recall a time when officers seized a firearm off anybody in a park.

He said it comes down to common sense when walking with a visibly displayed gun.

“Any member of the community should know they will alarm people while openly displaying a gun while out in the community,” he said. “It’s just foolish.”

[Statkowski]

“Any member of the community should know they will alarm people while openly displaying a gun while out in the community,” [Sgt. Robert McDyre of Lansdale Borough Police] said. “It’s just foolish.”

Perhaps the good police sergeant will set the example by not open carrying his police sidearm.

The law, enacted Jan. 30, 2007, and endorsed by 16 members of the state House basically says that anyone who is not prohibited from owning a firearm in the state can carry a handgun in public, no license required, and the gun must be visibly displayed, or not concealed.

Must be visibly displayed?

[XD40coyote]

Lt. Gordon Simes of Montgomery Township police said township parks are posted with warnings of no carrying or discharging of firearms.

“It will be enforced until such a time a decision is made to tell us to change the ordinance,” Simes said. “If something were to come down from supervisors, the parks and recreation ordinance would not be null and void because of one clause that’s stricken.”

Umm, potential lawsuits? Stupid cop...

[sxHarr05]

MonTownship cops are generally arrogant pricks.

[Steve in PA]

"Concealed carry is regulated by the state and then by the county, he said. To get a permit for a concealed weapon, one would need to apply with the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department and state the reason for concealment, be it self-defense, business or law enforcement purposes."

Law enforcement purposes???? Law enforcement doesn't need a permit for a concealed carry.

[gnbrotz]

I think we could spend days picking apart the errors in this article!

Bottom line is, thanks to another PAFOA member taking local action, another municipality is aware of (and apparently addressing) a violation of law. I thought this particular issue was settled months ago. The timing of the article seems strange.

[TaePo]

1) Could the discharge laws be used against a lawful self defense shoot and require gun confiscation, too?

Secondly, "Township policy is to question anyone bearing a gun in the park.", goes against the Pa. Constitution.

Pennsylvania:
Right to Bear Arms Section 21. The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.

And if no crime is being commited, what can they possibly ask for? If they only question gun carriers, is this not harassment?


ETA= I hope they train their officers that people can ignore them if they want to.

[LittleRedToyota]

so, the title of the article says "Court ruling".

i got all excited and thought maybe an actual court had actually finally had the chance to rule that it is illegal for municipalities to ban guns in their parks and that we might get some case law to cite.

but the article does not mention any actual court case...it sounds like this was all handled at the municipal government (i.e., board of supervisors/parks board) level without any actual court case. and from doing some further research, i can't find anything about any court case.

was there an actual court case or is it just that the title of the article is just as wrong as the content of the article?

(btw, anybody know what law "enacted Jan 30. 2007" are they talking about? they seem to say that is when the preemption clause--or maybe some non-existent law specifically stating that open carry is legal--was passed, but preemption has been around a lot longer than since 2007...and there is no law positively stating OC is legal.)

[MrUgly]

I think we could spend days picking apart the errors in this article!

Bottom line is, thanks to another PAFOA member taking local action, another municipality is aware of (and apparently addressing) a violation of law. I thought this particular issue was settled months ago. The timing of the article seems strange.

Same member. Lower Salford was doing a revamp of the parks signage, which is why this was tabled until now. I have been in regular contact with the Parks Board and the Township Supervisors, and I knew they were still aware of my interest. We got h the ruling we wanted, so I didn't see a need to browbeat them into an arbitrary time-table.

[gnbrotz]

Ok, since the article made it almost impossible to tell what the "story" is, here's what I'm getting from you:

They did indeed change the ordinance months ago, based on your bringing the situation to light. Despite that change, signs remained proclaiming a non-existent policy. Now, they're finally getting around to correcting the signs?

I knew "you were you", but was attempting to illustrate that yours is one more case where we are seeing a red marker turn green (Preemption violation map) because an individual (or individuals) are taking action, rather than expecting the NRA or some 'official' organization deal with it (which they rarely do).