A National Rifle Association challenge to a city of Pittsburgh gun ordinance met with skepticism in the courtroom of Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr., but no decision was made today on whether the lawsuit can continue.

At stake is the city's never-enforced ordinance requiring gun owners to report the loss or theft of a firearm within 24 hours of becoming aware that it is missing.

The NRA argues that the city overstepped its bounds, because state law bars municipalities from regulating the ownership, possession or transfer of firearms. The city, backed by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, has countered that it is only trying to regulate what happens when a gun passes out of the possession of its rightful owner.

Judge Wettick started a hearing on the city's effort to have the lawsuit thrown out by suggesting that the matter had already been decided, by the Commonwealth Court, which ruled last month that the gun owners organization and other plaintiffs had no standing to challenge a very similar Philadelphia law. He said that there's no reason to believe the NRA, or the four individuals that have joined it in suing the city, will ever be subject to Pittsburgh's ordinance.

Attorney Meghan Jones-Rolla, representing the NRA, said that one of the individuals has had a gun stolen in the past, and three have been crime victims, suggesting their guns could be stolen in the future.

"If you have to speculate about what's going to happen, then there is no standing," said Judge Wettick.

"It's unconstitutional, and these plaintiffs are harmed by it," Ms. Jones-Rolla maintained. She said the city's ordinance already is compelling gun owners to inventory their guns frequently, saddling them with a burden that fellow firearms owners in neighboring municipalities don't face.

Brady Center attorney Dan Vice said the ordinance is only likely to ever be enforced against gun traffickers who buy firearms, sell them to criminals and then claim they were lost and stolen after they turn up at a crime scene. He said 14 percent of gun trafficking cases involve guns stolen from homes, citing federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives research.

The lawsuit and hearing are part of a national shootout between the NRA and gun control advocates over ordinances like Pittsburgh's.

"The NRA has been going around to cities across Pennsylvania threatening to sue them for enacting this common-sense law to stop gun trafficking, and it's time for the NRA to stop that," said Mr. Vice.

Ms. Jones-Rolla noted that the General Assembly voted down a proposed statewide lost-and-stolen handgun reporting law, and she accused gun control advocates of convincing cities to violate state law.

Judge Wettick would not say when he would decide whether to toss out the lawsuit, as the city wants, or let it proceed.