HB 792 (NO) Handgun Registry Legislation – Rep Tallman 2013-2014

[Calzonewdippingsauce]

As Will Tallman is my rep. I will send him a nice thank you email. He also was a co-sponsor of HB 357.

[Mitch10mm]

I'll get on this

[TwistedCopper]

As Will Tallman is my rep. I will send him a nice thank you email. He also was a co-sponsor of HB 357.

X2!

This would be a huge victory for the liberty of the citizens of Pennsylvania.

[brsims]

My state Rep is having a townhall meeting on Tuesday. I'll talk to him in person about this afterwards. I find an in person discussion is worth about a million letters.

[GunLawyer001]

This would, on balance, be a good change.

There are benefits to the Database, particularly for use in fulfilling the police duty under 6111.1: The Pennsylvania State Police and any local law enforcement agency shall make all reasonable efforts to determine the lawful owner of any firearm confiscated or recovered by the Pennsylvania State Police or any local law enforcement agency and return said firearm to its lawful owner if the owner is not otherwise prohibited from possessing the firearm. When a court of law has determined that the Pennsylvania State Police or any local law enforcement agency have failed to exercise the duty under this subsection, reasonable attorney fees shall be awarded to any lawful owner of said firearm who has sought judicial enforcement of this subsection. Without the Database, it's hard for any department to determine the lawful owner, particlalry if the gun is recovered from an alley.

However, the negatives outweigh the positives. The persistent misuse of the Database as a mandatory "registry" shows no signs of stopping. And it gives any future anti-gun tyrants a tool to locate and confiscate a significant portion of the handguns owned by Pennsylvania citizens.

If it wouldn't be misused, we could keep it. But that's like giving your 16 year old daughter and her drifter boyfriend the keys to your beach condo. Bad things ARE going to happen, they can't help themselves.

[knight0334]

This would, on balance, be a good change.

There are benefits to the Database, particularly for use in fulfilling the police duty under 6111.1: The Pennsylvania State Police and any local law enforcement agency shall make all reasonable efforts to determine the lawful owner of any firearm confiscated or recovered by the Pennsylvania State Police or any local law enforcement agency and return said firearm to its lawful owner if the owner is not otherwise prohibited from possessing the firearm. When a court of law has determined that the Pennsylvania State Police or any local law enforcement agency have failed to exercise the duty under this subsection, reasonable attorney fees shall be awarded to any lawful owner of said firearm who has sought judicial enforcement of this subsection. Without the Database, it's hard for any department to determine the lawful owner, particlalry if the gun is recovered from an alley.

However, the negatives outweigh the positives. The persistent misuse of the Database as a mandatory "registry" shows no signs of stopping. And it gives any future anti-gun tyrants a tool to locate and confiscate a significant portion of the handguns owned by Pennsylvania citizens.

If it wouldn't be misused, we could keep it. But that's like giving your 16 year old daughter and her drifter boyfriend the keys to your beach condo. Bad things ARE going to happen, they can't help themselves.

Other states function just fine without a RoS system for the police to see who owns what. ...they use the 9/10th of the law method and/or commercial or private sales receipts to figure out who owns it. If it isn't list in a stolen/lost gun database, then the person who possesses it or holds the latest dated sales receipt is assumed to own it.

[JenniferG]

I wrote to my Representative the other day. My Rep John Lawrence just wrote me a nice post card to say how proud he is to be a sponsor of this bill. I'll scan it and post it later. Just home from work and I'm too tired to scan anything. The post card was handwritten and signed by him. Very cool. We need a smooch smiley, Representative Lawrence deserves a smooch from me, on the cheek of course.

I'd be willing to have them just dump the entire set of records. They can go from the stolen gun lists if they find a gun in an alley. if you didn't report your gun stolen you're just SoL. There is absolutely no need to keep a database of guns owned by citizens, none.

[truecrimson]

I certainly don't want to rain on the parade, but could exceptions 4 and 5 be intepreted to allow the PSP (nota)registry?

(4) Firearm records that are required to be retained by
firearms dealers or manufacturers under Federal or State law,
including copies of such records transmitted to law
enforcement agencies, provided that no State governmental
agency or political subdivision or official, agent or
employee thereof or any other person, private or public, may
accumulate, compile, computerize or otherwise collect or
convert such written records into any form of list, database
or registry for any purpose.

(5) Records kept by the Pennsylvania State Police to the
extent required by Federal law and a log of dates of requests
for criminal history record checks, unique approval and
nonapproval numbers, license identification numbers and
transaction numbers corresponding to such dates.

[WhiteFeather]

The feds have several legal requirements of the POC states to complete; on top of that the PA state legislators have put additional requirements on the PSP to complete the transfers of firearms under PICS.

The feds limit the time this information is held, PA doesn’t (see text of ACSL lawsuit for a the big picture)

As long as the PSP is the administrator of PICS and the PSP authority exist over the transfer of firearms, there is no 100% assurance that ROS database won’t be abused, maintained or can ever be completely deleted.

Short version of a very long answer


IF PA would ever make the full switch for to NICS to administer the transfer of firearms, then the full effect of that text should take then effect, as then the PSP would have no legal reason to maintain the information submitted on the ROS forms.

Plus without any new ROS being fed into the system the PSP records would soon become obsolete (even more incomplete). Then IF this legislation wouldn't do the task, another lawsuit could be brought and / or legislation added requiring it to be finally deleted as it would not be legal to be retained, much less a legal / practical reason to be retained by PSP.

why?

The PSP had to go on the official record what their capacity was and was not with the retention of the records with the transfer of firearms in the law suit “Allegheny County Sportsman vs. Rendell” this language was crafted with the intent to narrow the PSP guidelines to give them less room to interpreted.

closing the PSP ROS loophole if you will.

Lots of info on the “Allegheny County Sportsman vs. Rendell” links here - plus in other thread here on PAFOA

http://www.acslpa.org/html/gun_registration1.html
http://www.acslpa.org/html/court_rulings.html


In the 2011-2012 session this was the same proposed bill here this is not a new problem, just another attempt to hold the PSP accountable

HB 2356 Unlawful firearm records - Shall not be kept
http://forum.pafoa.org/pennsylvania-...-not-kept.html


Rep Krieger has for 2013- -2014 session the PICS elimination bill is still in sponsorship phase right now to read more about that effort (read details here)

HB 2127 PICS & ROS Elimination – save taxpayer cash & reducing size of government
http://forum.pafoa.org/pennsylvania-...overnment.html

Consider this

Without any forward movement of the bill (or others) in the legislative process nothing is going to change with the illegal PSP database and it shall continue to be abused in the future.


btw
More than a few legislators from both parties support both of these bills along with saving the tax payers some cash by just letting the Feds just do NICS.
short answer vs long one

What seems to be lacking is much tangible support by gun owners, making this a legislative priority, along with the desire of holding the PSP leadership accountable.

If after studying up on the subject and you are for the concept contact Reps listed in OP.

IF you feel this proposed bill text doesn’t go far enough for your high standards, and goals. please do not hesitate to contact your Reps and have them draft text an amendment to this bill or submit a new, better version. IF there is no down side for us, plus you can the extra support for your version along with getting the votes, we will roll with yours instead.