Pennsylvania Town Rejects Ordinance Proposal Recommending Guns for All Households
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Council members in this tiny borough voted overwhelmingly Wednesday night to dismiss a contested ordinance that recommended all households keep weapons and ammunition to prevent crime.
In the 6-1 vote, only Councilman Henry Statkowski, who proposed the Civil Protection Ordinance, objected to a motion to drop it.
"This would ... make a statement to the rest of the community and criminals in this area. If you want to break into a home in Cherry Tree, you might not like the consequences," said the 59-year-old retired U.S. Army master sergeant and Vietnam veteran.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}But other officials questioned how the ordinance would be enforced and whether it might open the borough to litigation.
"We don't want Cherry Tree to be known as a gun-toting town," Councilman Drax Felton said.
The Cherry Tree measure would not have been the first gun-related ordinance in Pennsylvania. In 1994, Franklintown repealed a law enacted 12 years earlier requiring each household to own a gun and ammunition.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Gun-control advocates have said such measures risk putting guns into the hands of criminals and increase gun violence.
Statkowski has acknowledged that Cherry Tree, a one-time logging center about 70 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, does not have a crime problem.