As expected, three Commonwealth Court judges recently overturned a sensible Philadelphia ordinance requiring people in that gun-violence-plagued city to tell police when their firearms are lost or stolen.

Senior Judge Bonnie Brigance Leadbetter, a member of the panel, lamented that the judges had no choice but to overturn the ordinance, because the Supreme Court ruled in 1996 that municipalities can’t supersede the state-level Uniform Firearms Act, even while knowing that doing so likely would result in more lost lives. She and the other two judges, Anne Covey and Patricia McCullough, all were elected as Republicans.

”The overwhelming blight of gun violence occurring in the city of Philadelphia, of which I believe we can take judicial notice, and the policy issues argued by the city in the case before us, call for a recognition that local conditions may well justify more severe restrictions than are necessary statewide,” Leadbetter wrote. “It is neither just to impose unnecessarily harsh limits in communities where they are not required nor consistent with simple humanity to deny basic safety regulations to citizens who desperately need them.”

The underlying case demonstrates why the reporting requirement is necessary. Philadelphia police had sought a $2,000 fine against a city man who had pleaded guilty to other gun crimes, and had admitted to a judge that he had acted as a “straw man,” selling at least six guns to people with criminal records who could not otherwise obtain them.

Reporting lost or stolen guns is not a punitive measure against people who own guns legally; it is an anti-trafficking measure to keep guns out of criminals’ hands.

Leadbetter’s reasoning makes perfect sense. Areas experiencing high levels of gun violence need tougher gun-safety measures than are necessary elsewhere in the state. The Republican legislative majorities that often expound on tailoring state policy to local needs defy their own policy by insisting on one-size-fits-all gun-safety laws that diminish public safety.

Philadelphia plans to appeal the ruling. Other cities, including Scranton, Carbondale, Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton, should support the suit, and the Supreme Court should embrace the opportunity to revisit a state law that clearly does not work in the interest of public safety.

— The Citizens’ Voice, Wilkes-Barre (TNS)