How a fight over zoning rules in one township could impact gun policies across Pennsylvania

PHILADELPHIA — The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court will soon decide whether Lower Merion has the authority to limit where guns are sold in the community.

The ruling, which will be the next step in a two-year saga over zoning laws, could have implications not just for the township, but for the power of local governments across Pennsylvania.

While Pennsylvania state law strictly prohibits local governments from regulating guns, Lower Merion officials have argued that prohibition doesn't extend to zoning, which regulates land use. If the township wins the case, it may empower other communities to follow suit, and protect several municipalities across the state that already limit gun sales to specific zones.

"It could open up the floodgates for every anti-gun municipality to zone out home-based FFLs (federal firearms licenses); it would put them out of business," said Val Finnell, Pennsylvania state director for the Gun Owners of America.

If the township loses, it will be yet another blow to left-leaning communities frustrated by Harrisburg's inaction on gun policy as Second Amendment advocates push the court to block municipalities from taking any action related to guns.

"At that point we are really talking about the Wild, Wild West of a world where this is the only industry that is barely regulated now in several ways and would be completely unregulated," said Adam Garber, executive director of CeaseFire PA. "The consequences we know are really clear, which would be more violence."

So how did we get here?

What did Lower Merion do?

In 2023, Shot Tec, a gun training facility and seller, placed signage for its small office in Bala Cynwyd. Community backlash was swift.

A petition calling on Lower Merion township officials to "do whatever legally necessary to stop this business" gathered more than 3,000 signatures on change.org.

Amelia Powell, who started the petition, had long held concerns about gun violence and was frustrated to see a business pop up in a busy corridor near schools.

"People were picking up the guns in the store and then walking out into the community with these firearms and these are people that have been newly trained on how to use them," she said.

In an effort to respond without violating Pennsylvania's preemption law, Lower Merion officials imposed a set of zoning rules limiting where retailers who hold a federal firearms license could be located in the township and enacted a series of requirements for shops to be approved in permitted areas.

"No one really thought about how an FFL would work in the context of a walkable downtown until one showed up," said Todd Sinai, the Democratic chair of the Lower Merion Board of Commissioners.

Joe Oxman, a community member who drafted the ordinance initially, said he was motivated by other communities in Pennsylvania which, according to the ATF, had already limited where guns could be sold. According to the ATF, several Pennsylvania municipalities restrict gun sales in residential areas.

"We knew it would pass state constitutional muster," he said.

Under Lower Merion's original ordinance, sellers of firearms could no longer operate in residential or walkable downtown areas. Instead they'd be relegated to spaces like strip malls and industrial use zones.

It also required businesses to take several safety measures including installing smash-resistant windows, maintaining an alarm system, and using internal video cameras.

"A substantial number of our residents are in favor of restricting the pervasiveness of guns and firearms," said Lower Merion Commissioner Josh Grimes, a Democrat. "We can't do that meaningfully because of federal and state laws but our solicitor advised us that we can, again, use zoning laws to regulate where they can be to the most appropriate parts of the township."

The lawsuit

But Grant Schmidt, the owner of Shot Tec, disagreed. He viewed the ordinance as an effort to block gun sales in Lower Merion.

"Essentially, in my view, it was a ban," Schmidt said.

While his business was allowed to continue operating in its location despite the new zoning rules, Schmidt sued on the grounds that he intended to open a second location in his home and the zoning rules prevented that.

Last year, a Montgomery County judge struck down some of the requirements in the zoning ordinance — like the shatter-proof windows — but allowed the overall zoning restrictions to stand alongside three conditions related to the firearms license, school zone rules, and disclosure of information to the local government.

Schmidt ultimately did not open a shop in his home, but he did lose the lease on his original location and had to move to a different location in the town.

He temporarily gave up his firearms license for his Lower Merion location, instead just operating a training center while he worked for zoning approval. He sold guns from a separate location in Narberth. Lower Merion's township commission approved zoning for Schmidt's FFL last month.

"This whole process is extremely silly; it's hurt a lot of people that we haven't been able to serve," he said. "Your FFL should be like a voting place, you have a right to vote, you shouldn't have to drive like 45 minutes to go vote. It should be the same thing to access the background check for the FFL."

Why does this matter?

Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Court will now decide whether the zoning rules themselves were appropriate. Both parties argued the case in front of the court last year. The court could now issue its ruling anytime in the coming weeks or months.

Lower Merion officials have argued that the law is not regulating guns but rather the use of the land in the township.

"This is not a gun-control law. This is simply about zoning and organizing the municipality," Lower Merion attorney Matthew Hovey said during oral arguments in December.

But Schmidt's attorney, Josh Prince, is fighting for the court to adopt a broad interpretation of Pennsylvania's preemption law. He argues that municipalities cannot adopt any policy that deals with firearms specifically.

Firearms sellers, he argues, can be subject to the same zoning and safety regulations as other commercial businesses but they cannot be singled out.

"They can't touch the issue at all," Prince argued.

Prince's interpretation, gun advocates argue, would essentially leave gun sellers with no rules as gun reform proposals have repeatedly stalled in Harrisburg.

If Lower Merion's ordinance is upheld, its proponents and detractors predict it will prompt similar measures across the state.

"I imagine a number of other communities will be exploring ways to say, 'Look you can have a gun store in our city, municipality, we're not saying no; we're just saying please put them here,'" Garber said.