Judge Connor, in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, ealier this week struck down Pennsylvania’s law requiring a permit to open carry in a vehicle and its law requiring a permit for open carry during a “state of emergency.”
The case, called Suarez v. Paris, challenges numerous elements of Pennsylvania’s Uniform Firearms Act of 1995 (UFA) and was brought jointly by both the Firearms Policy Coalition and the Second Amendment Foundation. All three individual plaintiffs had been charged and convicted of a criminal offense punishable by a term of imprisonment of more than one year, terms under which Federal law generally prohibits such individuals from possessing a firearm.
In his decision, Judge Connor ruled against two elements of the UFA:
- transporting firearms in a vehicle without a firearms license
- possession of firearms in public by unlicensed individuals during a declared state of emergency
However, his ruling upheld the Pennsylvania UFA requirement that:
- prohibits both concealed carry without a firearms license
- prohibits issuance of licenses to individuals who have been charged with or convicted of a crime punishable by a term of imprisonment exceeding one year
Judge Connor’s decision leaned heavily on Bruen and its “text, history, and tradition” standard for judging whether laws regulating firearms are Constitutional. Drawing analogies to both New York and New Jersey’s Bruen-response bills, he concluded that the Pennsylvania UFA did not fully disarm the plaintiffs in this case:
Unlike the New York licensing regime at issue in Bruen and the federal statute at issue in Range, the UFA’s disqualification provision does not categorically prohibit plaintiffs from possessing firearms. Cf. Bruen, 597 U.S. at 12; Range, 69 F.4th at 98 (noting that Section 922(g)(1) prohibited Range from “possessing . . . any firearm or ammunition”). We also note that Section 6109(e)(1)(viii)’s applicability does not hinge upon vague descriptors like “responsible.” Cf. Rahimi, 144 S. Ct. at 1903. The Commonwealth retains ample authority to condition the right to publicly carry a firearm in certain ways upon receipt of a license. These burdens are much less restrictive than the “eliminat[ion]” of concealed carry, which the Bruen Court found to be supported by history “so long as [states] left open the option to carry openly.” Id. at 59. They accordingly do not offend the Second Amendment’s guarantee.
Addressing another part of the challenge to the UFA (the section which prohibits unlicensed carry of firearms on public property and in the streets of Philadelphia, see id. § 6108.2), the court decided to “sever it and transfer it to our sister court in the Eastern District”.
Earlier this year, we reported about a similar challenge to the Pennsylvania UFA brought by the Second Amendment Foundation seeking to overturn the restriction prohibiting 18-to-20-year-olds from carrying weapons outside their homes during a state of emergency. The Third Circuit struck down this provision in January.
