Sorry for the busy title, but Philadelphia Mayor Nutter has been a busy man.

Not that he shouldn't be busy. In the wake of a plague of random attacks -- one fatal -- on Philadelphia commuters, a lot of Philadelphians want something done.

So what does Mayor Michael Nutter do?

He "defiantly signs" unconstitutional gun laws, which nearly everyone admits violate Pennsylvania state law. Moreover, while thumbing his nose at the Second Amendment, he compares himself to the Founders.

Council's measures appear to fly in the face of state law and legal precedent. The NRA says it will sue.

By Jeff Shields

Inquirer Staff Writer
Mayor Nutter likened himself and City Council members yesterday to the band of rebels who formed this country as he signed five new gun-control laws that defy the state legislature and legal precedent.

"Almost 232 years ago, a group of concerned Americans took matters in their own hands and did what they needed to do by declaring that the time had come for a change," Nutter said as he signed the bills in front of a table of confiscated weapons outside the police evidence room in City Hall.

"We are going to make ourselves independent of the violence that's been taking place in this city for far too long," he said.

This symbolic act of "defiance" is a costly move for Philadelphia, as gun owners will sue, and of course they will win.

He and Council are in for a fight, however. The city has tried and failed for three decades to buck the 1974 state law that reserves gun regulation to the state legislature. The state's preeminence appeared to be cemented in a 1996 Supreme Court ruling that allowed the legislature to prevent Philadelphia and Pittsburgh from enacting local gun laws.

§ 6120. Limitation on municipal regulation of firearms and ammunition.

(a) General rule.--No county, municipality or township may in any manner regulate the lawful ownership, possession, transfer or transportation of firearms, ammunition or ammunition components when carried or transported for purposes not prohibited by the laws of this Commonwealth.

Might they be hoping that the new Court will disallow the law?

The laws will of course promptly be challenged, and the legislature is being painted as the enemy. Of Philadelphia's right to unilaterally and unconstitutionally enact "change" I guess:

National Rifle Association spokesman John Hohenwarter said he expected the organization to sue "within a short time frame."

Kim Stolfer, vice chairman of the Pennsylvania Sportsmen's Association's legislative committee, said the organization was considering its legal options and suggested that the enactment of the laws was a criminal act.

"He's committing five misdemeanor crimes," Stolfer said. "What kind of message is he sending when he and City Council are willing to commit crimes for issues that are not going to work?"

Nutter and Council are not likely to find a great deal of support in the legislature.

State Representative John M. Perzel (R., Phila.) said through a spokesman that the laws were unconstitutional. House Speaker Dennis M. O'Brien (R. Phila.) did not return a call for comment, and State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo (D., Phila.) declined to comment.

Even the city's fiercest proponent of stricter gun laws in the legislature, Democratic Rep. Dwight Evans, offered only lukewarm support.

Evans spokeswoman Johnna Pro said: "No one . . . feels the frustration" of city leaders more than Evans, so he would not criticize them.

But Evans, she said, also is a leader in the House of Representatives and "believes that everyone needs to allow the process to work, even though the process, at times, may be excruciatingly slow and incredibly unresponsive."

Phil Goldsmith, president of the gun-control advocacy group CeaseFire PA, said "it's worth trying" to enact and test the laws.

"It's a shame the city has to do something like this because the legislature has failed to exercise its responsibilities," Goldsmith said.

As Nutter admits, he doesn't care what the law says:

Nutter embraced the idea of taking "direct action" to challenge a legal status quo to protect city residents.

"If we all sat around bemoaning what the law was on a regular basis," Nutter said. "I'd probably still be picking cotton somewhere as opposed to being mayor of the city of Philadelphia."

For a second there, I thought I'd been misinformed by the media about Michael Nutter. I had been led to believe that he was a middle class American, born and raised in Philadelphia. That he attended one of the finest prep schools in the Philadelphia area. And on top of that, a Wharton Business School grad. Sure enough, all of these details check out in his Wikipedia entry. His own campaign web page confirms the same details, adding that he worked as an investment banker. Not a word about manual labor, much less working in the cotton fields.

Baffling.

Americans love the "rags to riches" theme. Why would he omit something like that from his resume?

Can someone fill me in?

MORE: "FIGHTING CRIME" BY OPENLY BREAKING THE LAW. That's Glenn's reaction as he links Jeff Soyer's post on Nutter's madcap legislative crime spree. Notes Jeff wryly,

Worried about crime in his city, Philadelphia Mayor Nutter decides to join the fray and defy state law himself.

Ah, yes, that band of rebels -- weren't they armed? . . .Until the Lobsterbacks confiscated their weapons, which is one reason we have the 2nd Amendment today?

MORE: Giving Nutter the benefit of the doubt, it occurs to me that Mayor Nutter might not be saying that he used to pick cotton, but that his ancestors did.

Let's assume it's a legitimate form of argument to claim that you did whatever you think your ancestors did. I'm of Norwegian descent. Does that mean I can claim that "If we all had sat around bemoaning the lack of opportunities in the New World, I'd probably still be raiding Irish villages and sacking monasteries"?

UPDATE: Clayton Cramer has a great response to the claim that gun owners "overreact" to discussion of reasonable gun control, and he makes an excellent analogy to the First Amendment.

Many of the gun control advocates over the years have stated that their goal wasn't keeping guns out of the hands of criminals or the mentally ill, but to completely ban either all handguns, or all guns. See Professor Volokh's quotes of politicians promoting complete bans here, media sorts promoting complete bans, and advocacy groups promoting complete bans.

Imagine what your reaction would be to laws requiring newspapers to delay publishing columns for five days while the government checked the accuracy of the facts and quotes contained therein. (Think of all the minor errors of fact, libelous statements, and misleading information that would not be published.) Now, imagine your reaction if such a law was proposed amidst a continual whining for a complete ban on liberal media outlets. Would you find something a bit worrisome about that?

Oh, yes, of course they do.

(Beginning with firearms training for teenagers in the schools, carry permits issued to 16 year olds, and more....)