By Justin J. McShane
Early last month, US Law Shield of Pennsylvania and I sued the city of Harrisburg over its illegal gun ordinances.
Last week, before Judge Andrew H. Dowling of the Dauphin County Court of Common Pleas, Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse and several members of City Council in an attempt to justify their continuous breaking of the law.
In essence, their argument was that Act 192 of 2014, which merely extended the class of the people who can sue to enforce the law, was unconstitutional.
If Judge Dowling acts in the totally unprecedented manner as the Mayor and City Council implore him to do, it does not change the core fact that these ordinances remain illegal. This type of argument is a lawyer’s dodge.
This case has sparked a lot of publicity and controversy in our community, as well it should.
Even if the 2014 law is declared unconstitutional, the ordinances still remain illegal ever since the 1972 law. To put that in perspective I was born in 1976.
What also gets lost is an important lesson as well. We revolted against the tyrant King George III, in part, because he thought that he was not subject to the law. Harrisburg city leaders apparently similarly think that they are above the law.
Has some of the lawlessness that some say the city has seen perhaps due in part, to the negative role models of the Mayor and City Council? How can the government expect all to follow the law when their leaders openly and proudly defy the law?
Their ignoble claim of justification in breaking the law is in principle no different than that of any other lawbreaker. They all simply break the law.
Do we not deserve better than the “Do As I Say, Not As I Do” politics that the Mayor and City Council have adopted? Is this not the very same Mayor who came before the Commissioners of Dauphin County and chastised them over the tourism funds?
In doing so, according to PennLive/Patriot-News, he said “The appropriate response is not, ‘Give us more time to keep breaking the law. The goal should be to stop breaking the law.'”
We made a plain offer to the city of Harrisburg: Come into conformance with the law that has existed since 1972 and we will not seek attorney’s fees, costs or expert fees which now total well into six figures. What do they do? They reject the offer instead and illegal on.
Then in their expensive lawyer’s writings and in their press conferences, the Mayor speaks of the need to have these ordinances to fight crime and criminality.
Let’s examine the logic of this for just a moment. Here are the undisputed facts:
- They say that they need these ordinances for public safety.
- Yet, they say that they do not enforce these ordinances.
- Further, according to the Mayor, crime is at an all time rise.
Given this, they are now neck-deep on a path of spending millions of dollars to defend the existence of words on paper that mean in practice nothing because they do not enforce them at a time when crime and criminality in the city continues to rise. In what sort of Bizzaro world does this make sense?
If the Mayor and City Council really did care about crime and criminality rather than spending millions in a quixotic quest to defend unenforced ordinances and mere words on paper, they would take those millions of dollars them and put them to use truly combating crime and criminality.
They could do this in any number of ways, including:
- Employing more officers and equipment that they need;
- Removing dangerous and dilapidated buildings;
- Providing funding or further funding for outreach programs, educational programs, after school programs, battered women shelters and mental health programs;
- And expanding homeless shelters.
All of these have actual statistically proven effects on lowering crime and criminality as opposed to a silly quest to keep on the books ordinances that they do not even enforce.
Instead, here we all sit sadly fighting like children using other people’s hard earned money and funneling that money away from truly helping the citizens of Harrisburg.
I personally have struggled a great deal over this matter about the concept of attorney’s fees. Act 192 allows the prevailing plaintiff to assert attorney’s fees, costs and expert fees.
On the one hand, I think to myself that when a citizen breaks the law, the sentencing judge, at the very least, fines that citizen as part of the sentence. No one complains when that happens.
It is part of the lesson: Don’t break the law. At times, I think similarly to that in the case of the government who openly, knowingly and intentionally breaks the law. It is part of the lesson.
Does taking taxpayer money hurt the politicians or the people? It would be one thing if as a result of openly defying the law, the fees would have to be paid out of the Mayor’s or City Council members’ own pocket, but sadly it is not.
Perhaps it is easier for them to fight for principle to defend illegal ordinances that they do not enforce with other people’s money–your money. If it were their own money at risk, I doubt they would be so cavalier.
Finally, the Mayor chooses to talk about non-facts for political sound bites that further his anti-gun agenda such as repeatedly stating that the NRA is trying to bankrupt the City.
The NRA is nowhere in this lawsuit. I am not a member of the NRA. The NRA never sued the City. I could not give you a name let alone a phone number for anyone in authority at the NRA.
The time for grandstanding has come and gone.
The time for the rule of law is now.
Mr. Mayor and members of City Council, stop the “do as I say, not as I do” politics and stop breaking the law.
Justin J. McShane, an attorney, writes from Susquehanna Twp.
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