We are grateful Judge Joshua Roberts had the wisdom and temerity to block Philadelphia for enforcing its illegal and unconstitutional ban on firearms in public parks.

The proposed ban was never likely to prevent violent offenders from illegally using firearms to terrorize their communities. It was rather an imposition on law-abiding Americans, and as it left good people less able to defend themselves from violent criminals, a particularly gruesome imposition.

Pennsylvania law remains clear, which the plaintiffs acknowledged assisted in the judge’s decision coming so rapidly: Municipalities can not subject our state to a patchwork of confusing and contradictory gun laws.

“The law is so explicit: The city is not allowed to regulate possession of firearms in any manner,” Andrew Austin, the attorney for plaintiff organization Gun Owners of America noted.

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.

Austin is correct to observe that the ban “would not have — in any way — addressed the crisis of crime in our city,” as the Associated Press reported in Wednesday’s edition of the Williamsport Sun-Gazette.

In fact, as the Associated Press reported, five armed assailants ambushed teenagers outside a high school soon after the mayor of Philadelphia decreed that guns should be banned from public parks. Just as proponents of the Second Amendment repeatedly note, gun laws and bans do not deter violent criminals.

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 hope that elected officials both in Philadelphia and at the state level can move past these irrational desires to blame guns and the Second Amendment and instead focus on better funding and equipping police and prosecutors to investigate violent crimes and prosecute violent criminals.