NRA targeting cities and towns with massive legal fees

[CreekDog]

The NRA’s Diabolical New Plan for Killing Gun Laws

And at the moment, the most remarkable fight may be the one shaping up in Pennsylvania, where the National Rifle Association is facing off not against big national gun-control groups, but against many of the state’s towns and cities, in a brazen push to get them to repeal their gun-related laws.

Their highest priority was requiring gun owners to report lost or stolen guns—a law that was intended to make it harder for gun traffickers to claim, after a crime gun was traced back to them, that the gun had been lost or stolen before the crime was committed. Most of the states bordering Pennsylvania had such a law, but it was going nowhere in Harrisburg. Eventually, more than 100 towns and cities passed the requirement.

So the gun lobby got the state legislature to change the rules of the game. Late last year, Pennsylvania lawmakers passed a bill, loosely modeled on a Florida law, to make it possible for any state resident or any gun-rights group to which they belong to challenge local gun laws in court...Not only that, but the law requires that towns and cities pay the legal fees of any plaintiffs who successfully challenge their gun laws in court.

In other words, the NRA, with its headquarters in northern Virginia and annual revenues well above $200 million, can sue towns and cities, and expect them to pay its costs if it wins.

Meanwhile, many towns and cities across the state—from Norristown and Franconia outside Philadelphia to Munhall and Clairton in the Monongahela Valley to Erie on the shores of the Great Lakes—have rushed to repeal their gun-related ordinances, worried they won’t be able to afford to fend off these legal actions or, worst case, pay the NRA’s legal bills, alongside their school and snow-removal budgets. “These are risk-free lawsuits. You might get your fees covered or at the least, you get towns to drop their laws. It’s a jobs program for gun-lobby lawyers and an NRA bullying tactic for local towns,” says Shira Goodman, director of CeaseFire PA, the state’s main gun-control group. “They’re giving special rights to the NRA.”

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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/02/nra_s_new_legal_strategy_for_killing_guns_laws_pennsylvania_s_act_192_is.html

[pipoman]

1. They're repealing them because they violate state law and they know

They will lose if challenged. Pennsylvania state law doesn't allow cities to enact their own regulations. I suppose some might find forcing cities to abide by state law as diabolical....