We are happy to learn from the office of state Rep. Joe Hamm, R-Hepburn Township, that the legislator recently attended our region’s National Rifle Association banquet in Hughesville.

The state representative discussed his efforts in the legislature to secure concealed-carry rights in Pennsylvania and to prevent municipalities from overstepping their authority and attempting unconstitutional limits on the Second Amendment.

“I will always strongly support our right to own firearms,” Hamm said in an email newsletter detailing his attendance at the banquet.

His efforts on “Preemption,” or legislation curtailing efforts by municipal governments to place undue and unconstitutional burdens on gun owners, deserve particular praise.

As the courts have previously found and as we editorialized in October of 2022, “municipalities can not subject our state to a patchwork of confusing and contradictory gun laws.”

Such an approach would stretch police and judicial resources thin, enforcing municipal ordinances against well-intentioned Americans exercising a constitutional right when police and prosecutors instead should be allowed to focus on investigating and prosecuting criminals who infringe of the safety and rights of their neighbors.

“The state’s laws on this are fair in respecting the constitutional rights of gun owners, and Philadelphia and every municipality should recognize and accept that,” we said in that 2022 editorial. “Reducing Pennsylvania’s crime rates and preventing violent crimes will instead depend on the state’s willingness to confront those who commit violent crimes, not a willingness to unconstitutionally strip law-abiding Americans of their rights to keep and bear arms.”

We are thankful our region’s lawmakers understand the importance of the Second Amendment and the nature of reducing crime.