I think a lot of people who tell these PICs horror stories aren't telling the whole

[ungawa]

Guys, nobody knows this shit. Did everybody here know this stuff before they came here? If you say yes, most of you are full of crap.

Common understanding is you can buy and carry a gun if you're not a felon. Which doesn't even begin to cover it, of course. Heck, most people think you can drive around with a handgun "unloaded with ammo separate" with no LTCF, which is not based on law at all.

Of course people are going to come here confused and looking for answers. Even if they bother to look at the stickies they probably still won't believe they could possibly be prohibited and will still ask just to be sure. These laws are draconian. I bet I could name several ways to be prohibited that none of you would know and could end in you coming here and asking questions, or a visit from PSP.

[wanneroo]

I always believed that being a felon was a prohibitor. I had no idea about misdemeanors with 2 year sentences and other stuff. I also had no idea about 302's and similar things. I'm sure many people do not know the ins and outs of our carry laws in the state, including those involving transportation. That's why I joined this website, I was doing a lot of google searches to learn about LTCFs and carry laws, Pennsylvania specific issues and this site keep coming up. It's a great resource.

[KingShootersSupply]

If you took a sampling of people of the street and asked what you would need to be convicted of not to own a gun, the majority would only tell you felonies. There are plenty of attorneys who have no idea either.

[knight0334]

I'm sure there are countless legit PICS/PSP horror stories. I've personally helped a number of folks put together challenges for unjust denials. Now, I've yet to directly help with a challenge that was again denied - but there are those out there that have, and were unjustly denied on their challenge who were not prohibited persons.

The challenge process with PICS is faster than NICS's. Of those I helped, I don't remember any of them going beyond 8 weeks. Most were well under 4 weeks, with a number of those were around 2 weeks turn-around time.

Now yes, PICS is down more often than NICS. But that can be fixed. It really is something that we could throw money at to make sure the only time an automated response cant be processed is when NICS is down. ...which even then, PICS does have the capability of processing approvals when NICS is down.

Then there is the surcharge on transfers/background checks. ...we can legislate that away. BTW, NICS isn't free either.. ...you pay for it with your federal income and other excise taxes. Transferring from PICS to NICS really doesn't eliminate the financial burden, it just moves from state level to federal level.

Yes, the PSP can be a weird bunch to work with. ...I am cleared to work in federal courthouses and prisons, but the PSP wont clear me to work in their barracks or state prisons. But dealing with the PSP with guns in a state that has NEVER denied the existence of the right to keep and bear arms is easier than dealing with the federal government which refused to recognize that right until 2008.

[eagleclaw]

story. We all hear these stories about people trying to buy a gun and getting arrested because they didn't know they were prohibited. Having worked in the addiction treatment field I have dealt with a lot of people with records and 90% of them lie about their convictions. I have met two individuals whom were arrested for trying to purchase guns and both were clearly prohibited due to having multiple felony convictions. One lied to me and told me he didn't know his record was prohibiting because he didn't have any felony convictions. Well I pulled up his record and he was full of it. He most definitely had numerous felony convictions before he tried to buy a gun and given the time frame between his robbery convictions and his conviction for lying on the PICs form it seems reasonable to believe that he was probably on parole when he tried to buy a gun. I really don't think the PSP is out to get people who shouldn't be got. I've been arrested a few times but I was asking for it everytime. It has also been my experience that as long as you don't act like a douche they usually just give you a slap on the wrist. Just my thoughts on the matter.

Getting back to the OP’s original post, I never took a survey but I wouldn’t be surprised that a lot of patients lie about their past criminal record to a therapist because they don’t think that the therapist has access to it. By lying they avoid embarrassment and if they are court ordered into rehab they may believe it will shorten they stay if the therapist isn’t aware of their criminal history. Then there is always the possibility that someone doesn’t know or has a misconception of his or her own criminal record. This could occur because of a miscommunication between the defendant and his or her attorney. In other words the attorney may have successfully argue for a light sentence and told the defendant that he or she was off the hook or the charges were reduced when in fact it was not, only the sentence was reduced. Another issue could be the defendant lacks any comprehension of his or her criminal record simply because that person is too dumb to understand it.

In addition, prior to the PICs system, all one needed to do was to fill out the forms when buying a gun in PA, if one had a misdemeanor-1 in their record, it was unlikely anyone would find out when making a firearms purchase. Therefore anyone who had an M-1 on their record could buy a gun without incident even though they were breaking the law doing so. When PICs was in its early stages it would only flag crimes enumerated in the 6105 of the Crime code. However now it is programmed to flag M-1s, 302, as well as out of state crimes that are equivalent to those in 6105.

To summarize, more people are getting flagged as a firearms disability do to their own ignorance and that the PIC system is constantly being upgraded to where more stuff is being detected.

[greenjohn88]

While neither are perfect, when FBI has audited PICS, they raised constitutional concerns over how it is being implemented and PSP's position that if it cannot determine whether someone is prohibited, they are denied as being prohibited. FBI (correctly) believes that is unconstitutional, since you are denying a constitutional right without evidence that you are prohibited.

This alone is reason enough to nuke PICS from orbit.

Related: Can someone explain to me under what exact logic the the ATF holds 18 PA CS 6109(d) incompatible with 27 CFR 478.102(d) / 18 USC 922(t)(3)? Am I off base, or under critical examination are they actually compatible? I can see no reason why an LTCF should fail to qualify as a permanent Brady permit.

With NICS-exempt permits, PICS can all but go away. A system which can query and report the date and dealer of any given persons purchase is one step from a registry anyway.