Firearms ordinance repealed

Township’s stricter standards could have prompted lawsuit, under new Pennsylvania rule

LOWER SALFORD >> In the aftermath of last year’s passage of Pennsylvania’s Act 192, which allows residents or organizations that sue municipalities for having gun rules that exceed state law to collect legal fees and monetary damages, Lower Salford has joined the group of towns taking firearms ordinances off the books.

The township’s entire firearms ordinance was repealed at the June 3 Lower Salford Township Board of Supervisors meeting.

“We are required by state law to repeal this or suffer the possibility of a private lawsuit,” board Chairman Doug Gifford said.

“A number of municipalities have been sued by people they don’t even know who they are,” James Garrity, the township’s solicitor, said. “Some people are using this to try to make money.”

In 2008, Lower Salford removed rules banning guns in parks after a resident raised the issue that the state, not municipalities, set firearms regulations.

That didn’t remove all the township’s firearms regulations, though, Garrity said.

“The township had some laws in addition to the state laws,” he said.

Prohibited conduct listed in the repealed ordinance included anyone under 18 years old discharging or firing a firearm unless the person was hunting or under the supervision of a responsible adult 21 or older; anyone under the influ-

“We are required by state law to repeal this or suffer the possibility of a private lawsuit.” — Doug Gifford, chairman, Lower Salford Board of Supervisors

ence of intoxicating beverages or drugs being prohibited from firing or having a firearm in their possession; and a prohibition on discharging firearms within 150 feet of homes and barns unless the person doing so lived there or had the permission of the owner.

The use of firearms for hunting within Pennsylvania Game Commission rules, skeet or trap shooting, target shooting (with barriers), by law enforcement officers in the course of their job, and for protection of persons and property, was allowed under the ordinance.

In other matters at the June 3 meeting:

• Dick Prescott, Lower Salford’s representative to the Northern Montgomery County Recycling Commission, delivered a $44,261 check for state money received for recyclables collected in Lower Salford in 2013.

The amount received is more than last year, mainly because the commission forwarded the entire amount received to the municipalities this year, rather than keeping a part for its own funding, Prescott said.

“You guys get to use all of it. Use it wisely,” Prescott told the board.

• The board approved having the township pay $41,850 towards an agricultural conservation ease- ment on 30.81 acres at the Derstine farm on Old Sumneytown Pike.

When a conservation easement is purchased, the property owner continues to own and can use the land for agricultural purposes, but sells the development rights so the property cannot be developed.

Lower Salford is paying 15 percent of the total amount being paid, with county and state money paying the rest, Gifford said.

The township won’t have to pay until settlement takes place, Gifford and township Manager Joe Czajkowski said.

“It won’t happen until probably next year, but they want us to commit to the funds,” Czajkowski said.