HARRISBURG — The state Supreme Court has scheduled an argument for Wednesday in a bid by Philadelphia and relatives of gun violence victims to revive a legal challenge to the state law barring local governments from passing gun control ordinances stricter than state law.

The case, Crawford v. Commonwealth, was filed in October 2020, claiming the state preemption law “handcuffs local governments so that they cannot enact or enforce even simple, well-researched policies that have been repeatedly shown to save lives, while it also refuses to enact statewide gun safety laws. … In short, the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s actions have stoked the gun violence epidemic.”

In May 2022, Commonwealth Court dismissed the case with three judges favoring dismissal and two dissenting. The plaintiffs appealed the Commonwealth Court decision to the Supreme Court.

“We will ask the PA Supreme Court to reverse Commonwealth Court’s previous dismissal of our case and send the case back to the lower court for discovery and trial,” the Public Interest Law Center said in a statement in July.