Pennsylvania Court Finally Gets It Right on Philadelphia’s Ridiculous Open Carry Ban

About time someone called out this obvious constitutional violation

Here’s some good news for a change: The Pennsylvania Superior Court just told Philadelphia that no, you can’t create your own special set of gun laws that ignore the Constitution. In a 2-1 ruling on June 23rd, the court struck down Philly’s ban on open carry without a license, saying it violates the Equal Protection Clause.

And honestly? It’s about time.

The case involved Riyadh Sumpter, a 20-year-old guy from West Philadelphia who got arrested in 2022 because police saw a gun sticking out of his waistband. When they asked him about it, he gave the most reasonable answer in the world: he was carrying it for self-defense because his neighborhood is dangerous.

Here’s the kicker – if Sumpter had been walking down a street in any other city in Pennsylvania, he would have been perfectly legal. But because he happened to live in Philadelphia, he got arrested and convicted.

Why This Law Was Always Stupid

Pennsylvania’s Section 6108 is one of those laws that makes you wonder what lawmakers were thinking. It only applies to “cities of the first class” – which is just fancy legal speak for Philadelphia. Everywhere else in Pennsylvania? Open carry without a license is totally legal if you’re 18 or older.

So you could strap on a pistol and walk around Pittsburgh, Allentown, or any small town in Pennsylvania without breaking any laws. But cross into Philly and suddenly you’re a criminal for doing the exact same thing.

The whole situation gets even more ridiculous when you consider age restrictions. Pennsylvania makes you wait until 21 to get a carry license, which means 18-to-20-year-olds like Sumpter were completely banned from exercising their Second Amendment rights in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, their buddies in every other part of the state could open carry just fine.

It’s the kind of geographical discrimination that should make any reasonable person’s head spin.

Thank Goodness for Judges Who Actually Read the Constitution

Judge Victor Stabile, writing for the majority, got it exactly right. He recognized that “the right to keep and bear arms outside the home is a fundamental right protected by the Second Amendment.” Because we’re talking about fundamental constitutional rights here, the court correctly applied strict scrutiny – the toughest legal standard – and found that Pennsylvania couldn’t come up with a good enough reason to treat Philadelphia residents like second-class citizens.

The court’s reasoning was rock solid: “Section 6108 places persons within the City of Philadelphia at a special disadvantage in the exercise of their Second Amendment right… Section 6108 fails to pass strict scrutiny and is therefore unconstitutional.”

This isn’t just legal nitpicking. This is about the basic principle that your constitutional rights shouldn’t depend on your zip code. As Dr. Val Finnell from Gun Owners of America put it perfectly: “gun rights don’t end at the Philadelphia city line.”

Amen to that.

But We’re Not Done Yet

Here’s the frustrating part: this ruling technically only applies to Sumpter’s case. The court made what’s called an “as-applied” decision, which means Section 6108 is still on the books. Philadelphia cops can still arrest people for open carry, and each person has to fight their own expensive court battle to get the same result.

It’s a completely backwards way to handle an obviously unconstitutional law.

The Pennsylvania legislature needs to step up and just repeal Section 6108 entirely. No more games, no more forcing individual citizens to spend thousands of dollars in legal fees to secure rights they should already have. Just kill the law and move on.

Until that happens, we’re stuck in this weird limbo where the law is technically still there, but any decent lawyer should be able to get charges dismissed based on this precedent.

Why Are Courts Doing the Legislature’s Job?

This whole situation perfectly captures what’s wrong with how Second Amendment rights get handled in this country. Instead of elected representatives actually doing their jobs and protecting constitutional rights, we’re constantly having to drag these issues into court.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m grateful when judges like Victor Stabile actually read the Constitution and apply it correctly. But the fact that gun rights advocates have to spend years and tons of money in courtrooms just to secure basic constitutional protections? That’s a problem.

Think about it: How many other constitutional rights require this kind of constant litigation? We shouldn’t need to file lawsuits to get the same carry rights in Philadelphia that people have everywhere else in Pennsylvania. This should have been fixed by the legislature decades ago.

But instead, lawmakers punt on anything gun-related, leaving regular citizens to fight expensive legal battles that can drag on for years. And here’s the scary part – rights that get secured through court decisions can be more easily overturned when the judicial makeup changes. Legislative protections are much more solid.

What This Really Means

There are a few important takeaways from this case that are worth noting.

First, it shows that even courts with Democratic-appointed judges can recognize obvious constitutional violations when they see them. Superior Court President Judge Anne Lazarus is a Philadelphia Democrat, but she still joined the Republican-appointed Judge Stabile in the majority. Sometimes the Constitution is just so clear that politics don’t matter.

Second, this ruling proves that the Supreme Court’s decisions in Heller, McDonald, and Bruen are still doing important work. Those cases established that carrying firearms for self-defense is a fundamental constitutional right, and lower courts are starting to take that seriously.

But here’s the thing – the gun control crowd isn’t giving up. Adam Garber from CeasefirePA is already calling for this decision to be appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. These people will never accept even the most modest recognition of Second Amendment rights, so we need to stay vigilant.

The Bottom Line

Open carry isn’t some weird fringe issue – it’s a constitutional right that’s explicitly protected by the Second Amendment. The Pennsylvania Superior Court finally recognized this obvious truth and struck down a law that treated Philadelphia residents like they live in some kind of constitutional dead zone.

Riyadh Sumpter got his conviction thrown out, which is great for him. But the bigger fight isn’t over. Pennsylvania lawmakers now have a golden opportunity to do the right thing by just repealing Section 6108 entirely. No more legal games, no more forcing people to fight individual court battles – just equal rights for everyone.

Until that happens, this ruling stands as both a win for our constitutional rights and a perfect example of what’s broken in our system. In America, your fundamental freedoms shouldn’t change just because you cross a city line.

And honestly? It’s pretty sad that we even need a court to tell us something that obvious.