A statewide legal gunfight moved to a Pittsburgh courtroom yesterday, where a judge seemed disinclined to strike down a new city ordinance on reporting the loss or theft of guns.

Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr. wouldn't say when he will rule on whether to allow the National Rifle Association's lawsuit against the city of Pittsburgh to continue.

"I have trouble believing that [the city ordinance] will ever be enforced," Judge Wettick said during court arguments.

The city requires gun owners to report the loss or theft of a firearm within 24 hours of becoming aware that it is missing, but hasn't charged anyone under the law. The NRA argues that municipalities can't control guns.

The city wants the lawsuit tossed out, and may be bolstered by a Commonwealth Court ruling last month that the NRA and several individuals lacked standing to challenge a very similar ordinance in Philadelphia. Judge Wettick started yesterday's hearing by asking whether that decision knocks out the NRA's lawsuit here.

Attorney Meghan Jones-Rolla, representing the NRA, said that one of four individual plaintiffs here 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" to challenge the law, said Judge Wettick.

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

The ordinance is likely to be enforced only 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, said Dan Vice, an attorney with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which is defending the city. He said 14 percent of gun trafficking cases involve guns stolen from homes, citing federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives research.

Eight Pennsylvania cities have passed ordinances like Pittsburgh's.

Ms. Jones-Rolla noted that the General Assembly voted down a proposed statewide lost-and-stolen gun reporting law. She said gun control advocates are trying "to violate the law in these other cities ... and get city councils to enact this ordinance."

"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," countered Mr. Vice.