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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2023 - 2024
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | February 21, 2023 08:31 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Christopher M. Rabb |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Empowering law enforcement to fight gun violence at the point of sale |
| As gun violence rages on, the flow of illegal firearms -- whether stolen or lost -- has continued to plague our communities. Research shows that this flow transcends county and city boundaries. In fact, most firearms recovered by law enforcement originate in counties surrounding the urban centers where we’ve seen the most gun violence. And with over 2,500 federally licensed firearms dealers across Pennsylvania, we must determine which establishments are complicit in this public health crisis and focus on the bad actors while providing support for good faith dealers seeking to modernize their operations. There are more licensed gun dealers than Starbucks. And there are more gun dealers in Pennsylvania than all ATF agents nationwide. Ardent supporters of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution emphasize that the best way to address gun violence is simply enforce the laws already on the books and steer clear of further government restrictions on the rights of law-abiding firearms owners. As the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, “We need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they're falling in.” To this end, I will be introducing legislation that centers on an innovative, evidence-based approach to tackling the gun violence epidemic well upstream from other interventions to address this crisis. In addition to other substantive approaches to reducing gun violence, we need to address this epidemic from the supply side without infringing on Pennsylvanians’ Second Amendment rights. In this vein, my forthcoming bill centers on the critical need for a unified statewide approach — because individual counties cannot implement these compliance measures in silos. This bill seeks to reduce gun violence in three ways. First, it would require that the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) or their designees conduct annual inspections of federally licensed firearms dealers. Second, it would codify a duty to report lost or stolen firearms or ammunition. Third, it would establish programs to 1) to provide grants to federally licensed firearms dealers to modernize their operations and 2) fund PSP-led recruitment, training and oversight of PSP designees to ensure they have properly stored and secured firearms sales records, similar to federal law. It should be emphasized that the more we allow law enforcement and their designees to inspect gun dealership, the safer we make our streets for everyone — including police tasked to protect and serve. Data collected in this process can be used to ascertain what percentage of the state’s firearms dealers have a disproportionately high percentage of handgun sales that are involved in homicides. In addition, this legislation would allow for random inspections of licensed dealers with this specific sales profile and would consider firearms held in consignment to be inventory. As legislators, we have a duty to identify and resolve issues that put the lives of our fellow Pennsylvanians in danger. By better regulating firearm theft reports, establishing random inspections of dealers, and encouraging our counties and municipalities to conduct inspections regarding properly stored and secured firearm sale records, we can do our part in promoting deeper community safety in every county in Pennsylvania. Please join me in co-sponsoring this common sense legislation to stem gun violence across our commonwealth. |
Introduced as HB1852