It was the face of 9-year-old Ciara Savage staring from the newspaper page that moved Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray to action.

The Lancaster girl was killed in a gang drive-by shooting in York on Sunday.

"It just makes you sick," Gray said Tuesday night.

For Gray, Savage put another face on the problem of illegal guns on the streets. And on Tuesday, he urged Lancaster City Council members to resurrect a proposed ordinance that would require gun owners to report lost or stolen guns to police.

Council members voted unanimously to do so and the proposal will be on council's May 26 agenda. A vote on the measure could occur June 9.

The proposed city law is intended to inform police that the gun may be in the wrong hands and to curb illegal "straw man" purchases in which someone who can legally buy a gun does so for a convicted felon who cannot.

The proposal was tabled in October when similar city ordinances faced legal challenges. Gray said Tuesday those legal challenges still have not been resolved, but that he feels Lancaster and other cities must act because state legislators have not done so.

"If it means a lawsuit, it means a lawsuit," the mayor said. "But, I think we have the authority to do it and I think we have the moral authority to do it," he said of enacting the ordinance.

The proposal would require any gun owner who has a gun lost or stolen in the city to report it to police within 72 hours of discovering a gun is missing.

Savage was playing outside the York home of her aunt when police believe a gunman drove by and fired at rival gang members. The girl was hit in the back by one of the four shots fired.

"That just brought it home," Gray said Tuesday. "I'm not waiting anymore. Other cities are doing it and I think our city should too."

Harrisburg passed a similar measure late last month. The state's capital city became the sixth Pennsylvania city to enact such a law, the Harrisburg Patriot-News reported. It followed Allentown, Reading, Pittsburgh, Pottsville and Philadelphia.

The National Rifle Association and other gun owners rights groups have challenged the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia laws in court arguing that only the state and federal governments have the authority to enact gun control measures. The cities have responded they have the right to act because they are attempting to control illegally obtained guns, not those in the possession of law-abiding gun owners.


Staff writer Bernard Harris can be reached at bharris@LNPnews.com or 481-6022.