Issue date: 7/10/08 Section: News

With all the attention that gun control has garnered in recent months, it's no wonder that Philadelphia is renewing its efforts to reform and enforce its gun policies.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey announced the start of a 30-day moratorium on reporting lost or stolen guns yesterday in an effort to begin enforcing one of the gun control measures passed in April.

The law states that gun owners must report any lost or stolen guns to the police within 24 hours or face fines of up to $1,900.

The enforcement of this measure comes less than two weeks after a landmark 5-4 Supreme Court decision in which justices voted to strike down the District of Columbia ban on handgun ownership on the basis that it violated Second Amendment rights.

This decision was the first time the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to own a gun for self-defense, as opposed to previous implications that the right to own a gun related primarily to militia service.

Nutter said at a press conference that he felt the Supreme Court's decision was "wrong," but that it is "ultimately irrelevant to what we are trying to do here in Philadelphia."

He argued that while the decision supports individual gun ownership rights for self-defense purposes, it also states that Second Amendment rights are "not unlimited."

"What we're trying to do isn't about self defense," said Nutter press secretary Doug Oliver. "It's about stopping illegal activity from occurring."

Political analyst and St. Joseph's University history professor Randall Miller said the Nutter administration will focus on this difference in purpose by advocating regulation of guns in the public sphere.

He added that the Supreme Court decision will spur the National Rifle Association to file lawsuits against other restrictive gun measures across the country, but that its effect on Pennsylvania gun policy remains unclear.

"I don't think anyone knows what this means," he said. "It's all very fluid."

In April, the Philadelphia City Council unanimously passed five measures that would control the use and possession of firearms in the city, which Nutter then signed into law.

Consequently, the National Rifle Association filed a lawsuit against the City of Philadelphia on the grounds that the city's measures violated Pennsylvania law.

In June, Common Pleas Court Judge Jane Cutler-Greenspan struck down two of the five measures, which would have banned assault weapons and limited handgun purchases to one per month.

However, she upheld the other three measures, which included allowing judges to remove guns from people determined to be a risk to themselves or others, preventing people subject to protection-from-abuse orders from owning guns and requiring gun owners to report lost or stolen guns to the police within 24 hours.

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