House votes against requiring lost, stolen handgun reporting

[RugerNiner]

A proposal to require handgun owners to report to police when their weapons are lost or stolen was defeated Tuesday in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

The 75-128 vote was a setback for gun-control advocates who said it would have helped prevent criminals from using straw buyers to circumvent Pennsylvania's gun sales regulations.

"Seventy-five is great, on one hand," Rep. Dwight Evans, D-Philadelphia, said afterward. "The reality is, we want to have a law on the books."

Twenty Republicans voted for the measure — all from Philadelphia or its suburbs — and 81 were against it. Fifty-five Democrats supported it and 47 voted no.

The measure would have given owners 72 hours after they learned their weapon was missing to report it. Police who encountered an unreported lost or stolen handgun in a criminal investigation would have been able to charge a first-time offending owner with a summary offense.

A second offense would have been a misdemeanor, and a third offense would have constituted a felony.

Backers said it was needed to help reduce gun violence that has been particularly devastating in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and many of the state's other cities.

"Illegal handguns leave a trail of blood," said supporter Rep. Lisa Bennington, D-Allegheny. "Dying children are not identified as Democrat or Republican. They are not identified as urban or suburban dwellers. They are identified as missed by their families."


National Rifle Association spokesman John Hohenwarter said the provision could have unfairly exposed law-abiding gun owners to criminal penalties.

Minority Leader Sam Smith, R-Jefferson, said existing laws are adequate but need to be enforced more aggressively.

"The problem is that judges are not taking the actions they should be taking against people who use guns as they commit crimes," Smith said.

Rep. Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster, said the legislation raised similar issues to a 1968 U.S. Supreme Court case that applied protections against self-incrimination to a gun registration law.

"At best, this law as drafted will be ineffective," he said. "At worst, I believe that it will be unconstitutional."

Rep. Cherelle Parker, D-Philadelphia, said the recorded vote will be on voters' minds this year.

"Did my representative take into consideration the recommendations of law enforcement throughout Pennsylvania? Did my legislator take into consideration the recommendations of prosecutors throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania? Did my legislator take into consideration the polls?" Parker said.

The defeated proposal was an amendment to a bill to increase the criminal penalties for possessing guns with altered or obliterated serial numbers. Other amendments were approved, mostly on much wider margins. The bill requires a final vote on another day to make it out of the House to the Senate.

The NRA's Hohenwarter said his organization supports the other amendments and predicted the bill will make it to Gov. Ed Rendell's desk.

He said supporters of the lost-or-stolen provision should consider that other provisions they wanted were added, including additional penalties for gun owners who make false reports about stolen guns.

"I know they're probably disappointed, but they did pick up quite a bit that I think will help target criminals throughout the state," he said.

Joe Grace, executive director of the gun control advocacy group CeaseFirePA, said he was encouraged by getting 75 favorable votes.

"There were nay sayers out there saying we wouldn't break 55 votes, but we did significantly better than expected," he said. "This is a beginning."

Grace said seven other states and Washington, D.C., have already passed lost-and-stolen reporting laws that include penalties.

©2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[spabula]

I'm glad to hear it. I wasn't sure when they were actually voting on this.

[TheBuckslayer]

A proposal to require handgun owners to report to police when their weapons are lost or stolen was defeated Tuesday in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

The 75-128 vote was a setback for gun-control advocates who said it would have helped prevent criminals from using straw buyers to circumvent Pennsylvania's gun sales regulations.

"Seventy-five is great, on one hand," Rep. Dwight Evans, D-Philadelphia, said afterward. "The reality is, we want to have a law on the books."

Twenty Republicans voted for the measure — all from Philadelphia or its suburbs — and 81 were against it. Fifty-five Democrats supported it and 47 voted no.

The measure would have given owners 72 hours after they learned their weapon was missing to report it. Police who encountered an unreported lost or stolen handgun in a criminal investigation would have been able to charge a first-time offending owner with a summary offense.

A second offense would have been a misdemeanor, and a third offense would have constituted a felony.

Backers said it was needed to help reduce gun violence that has been particularly devastating in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and many of the state's other cities.

"Illegal handguns leave a trail of blood," said supporter Rep. Lisa Bennington, D-Allegheny. "Dying children are not identified as Democrat or Republican. They are not identified as urban or suburban dwellers. They are identified as missed by their families."


National Rifle Association spokesman John Hohenwarter said the provision could have unfairly exposed law-abiding gun owners to criminal penalties.

Minority Leader Sam Smith, R-Jefferson, said existing laws are adequate but need to be enforced more aggressively.

"The problem is that judges are not taking the actions they should be taking against people who use guns as they commit crimes," Smith said.

Rep. Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster, said the legislation raised similar issues to a 1968 U.S. Supreme Court case that applied protections against self-incrimination to a gun registration law.

"At best, this law as drafted will be ineffective," he said. "At worst, I believe that it will be unconstitutional."

Rep. Cherelle Parker, D-Philadelphia, said the recorded vote will be on voters' minds this year.

"Did my representative take into consideration the recommendations of law enforcement throughout Pennsylvania? Did my legislator take into consideration the recommendations of prosecutors throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania? Did my legislator take into consideration the polls?" Parker said.

The defeated proposal was an amendment to a bill to increase the criminal penalties for possessing guns with altered or obliterated serial numbers. Other amendments were approved, mostly on much wider margins. The bill requires a final vote on another day to make it out of the House to the Senate.

The NRA's Hohenwarter said his organization supports the other amendments and predicted the bill will make it to Gov. Ed Rendell's desk.

He said supporters of the lost-or-stolen provision should consider that other provisions they wanted were added, including additional penalties for gun owners who make false reports about stolen guns.

"I know they're probably disappointed, but they did pick up quite a bit that I think will help target criminals throughout the state," he said.

Joe Grace, executive director of the gun control advocacy group CeaseFirePA, said he was encouraged by getting 75 favorable votes.

"There were nay sayers out there saying we wouldn't break 55 votes, but we did significantly better than expected," he said. "This is a beginning."

Grace said seven other states and Washington, D.C., have already passed lost-and-stolen reporting laws that include penalties.

©2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Great news, thanks for the news and the gentleman in bold must be a class A douchbag.

[RocketFoot]

Great news! At least some State officials know what freedom is! Rendell and his Philadelphia posse haven't got a clue!

[normanvin]

thanks for the update....

[djturnz]

At first I was all for selling Philly to NJ for $1.

Now I think we should appoint Rendell as Govornor of the "District of Philadelphia" and just annex the damn place.

When can we get a list of who voted and how?

[Erich Hooper]

" this is just a beginning" is something for all gunowners to worry about.

[Willis]

When can we get a list of who voted and how?

List: http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/...=H&rc_nbr=1524

Delaware County Representative, Tom Killion (R-168), continues to disappoint. It seems like those Philadelphia area Republicans are worse than many of the PA Democrats.

[LakeCity]

The laws we have now are not being enforced. Police and prosecutors simply don't have the resources they need. Our criminal justice system in its present state simply can't do the job that needs to be done. The following is quoted from two recent articles in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Philadelphia Inquirer

Sun., March 23, 2008

Article:
Pa. a favored source for gun traffickers
By Mark Fazlollah

Inquirer Staff Writer

A few excerpts:

"In Pennsylvania and other states, police and prosecutors generally haven't made straw buyers a priority."

"In Philadelphia, the police unit responsible for tracking guns is only now digging out of a 6,000-case backlog caused by inadequate staffing. The delays got so bad that judges sometimes dismissed cases because necessary lab work wasn't finished in time.

And most of the state's 67 county prosecutors didn't file any cases against alleged straw buyers in 2006 or 2007, court records show.

In Philadelphia, Assistant District Attorney Albert Toczydlowski said his office rarely prosecuted straw buyers until recently, when the state set up a task force to focus on gun violence.

The unit is making about 10 arrests a month, only a small fraction of offenders.

Federal prosecutors in Philadelphia, who have the advantage of stronger criminal penalties, likewise file only about 20 to 30 cases a year. It's a matter of limited resources, a spokesman said."

"...when straw buyers are tracked down, their most common story is that they really bought the guns for themselves, but that the guns were stolen. It's often impossible to disprove."

"Prosecutors and agents say they could catch many more straw buyers, using existing laws, if they had more resources."



Philadelphia Inquirer

Sun, Feb. 3, 2008

Article:
Tom Ferrick Jr.: Policing alone won't solve crime problem
Justice system, high dismissal rate still a scandal.
By Tom Ferrick Jr.

For The Inquirer

Excerpted from the article:

"According to the latest data, 54 percent of the felony cases in Philadelphia are dismissed at the preliminary-hearing stage.

Some are dismissed because a judge rules there is not enough evidence to advance to a full trial. But most - nobody knows exactly how many - are dismissed because the case fails to come together: Either witnesses or the arresting officers fail to appear. Or the prosecutor is not ready. Or an important piece of evidence has not arrived.

In Philadelphia's high-volume court system, which handles more than 1,000 cases a week, preliminary hearings rarely come off as scheduled. They are postponed, and then postponed again, and then postponed again, and then dismissed by a judge who feels he must move on to other cases.

I first reported on the city's high dismissal rate eight years ago. So it is a continuing scandal, not a new one.

Federal studies have shown that Philadelphia has the highest dismissal rate of any of the nation's 75 largest counties - nearly double the national average of 24 percent. This is from data compiled by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2002, the latest year available for department researchers."